Like Pinning Butterflies
by superfeypower
Summary: Craig Tucker is sick. Craig Tucker is stalking Tweek. And Craig Tucker knows that he wants Tweek all to himself more than anything else in the entire world. Craig/Tweek WARNING: DO NOT READ IF EASILY UPSET.
1. One

**A/N: **This story is NOT for those who are easily disturbed or upset. This story is intended to be very morbid and macabre and will contain subjects that most of the population find upsetting. In case you're wondering, these subjects will be along the lines of: stalking, torture, morbid/macabre love, death, suicide, rape and so on, so forth. If any of these subjects upset you, PLEASE do not read this fanfic!

If, however, you enjoy reading something that may disturb your mind slightly, then please continue.

Also, I may forget to update it on , but the LJ version will be updated as soon as the next chapter is written. On top of that, some of what is written will be edited out before published here because of it's extremely mature content. If you'd like to read the unedited LJ version, you can find it at my LJ at: ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com

_Like Pinning Butterflies_ is based off of 'The Horror of Our Love' by Ludo.

* * *

_I'm a killer _

_Cold and wrathful_

_Silent Sleeper_

_I've been inside your bedroom_

_

* * *

  
_

Craig thinks that Tweek would look wonderful with red blood dripping down along his frail, white chest. Craig thinks that it would look even better if it were Tweek's own blood and if it were pouring from a neck wound, maybe just near the jugular, but not deep enough to kill him. Oh, no, he wouldn't want to kill Tweek, especially not in such a mundane, overused way to take a life. Tweek deserves better, Craig knows that. Tweek deserves someone like Craig, who would love and care for him like no other possibly could.

Craig can see Tweek laying asleep in his bed, can see as the blonde's chest rises and falls, heavy with sleep. Craig can imagine watching as he creeps over, Tweek giving the faintest of twitches when he hears Craig. But he wouldn't wake up, oh no, and Craig would take the chance to slide his hand across Tweek's soft face, moving to slide over his mouth and nose. And though Tweek would wake, panic and struggle desperately for release, Craig would keep his hand pressed firmly over those thin lips, refusing to let him utter a single sound. And, eventually, Tweek would slacken against Craig's grip and his eyes would roll into the back of his head and he would fall back against the sheets. But Craig wouldn't kill him, not then. He would save that for later, if it were necessary.

The dark-haired male opens his eyes against the heat in the room and stares in a daze at the blonde he had been watching all day. Slowly, he lets out a sigh that he had been holding back ever since he had started to fantasize.

Craig Tucker is sick.

And Craig Tucker is madly in love.

---

The classroom is hot. The stale, dry air filters in from outside and drapes itself over the students like some heavy, shared burden. No one can concentrate on the words that stumble from their teacher's lips, which only add more hot air into the room. The entire class, save for the teacher, is stagnant. Even a cough is enough to make someone break out in a sweat.

And in this hot, heavy atmosphere, he feels the paranoia spinning out of control. Tweek glances nervously to the side, staring at Craig with wide, green eyes that tremble in place inside of his skull, eyelids threatening to snap shut but never actually doing so, as if afraid he may miss something.

Craig's gaze never once falters, it just stares ahead at Tweek - even, still and strangely predatory. He looks like a wolf, waiting patiently in sheepskin for his fellow sheep to drop their guards before he attacks and rips them into a bloody massacre. The blue-grey eyes never leave Tweek and even when he looks back to the front, he can still feel that cool, emotionless gaze on the side of his cheek, watching and waiting – waiting for what?! The fact that he doesn't know is scaring him and Tweek really doubts he'll be able to concentrate now.

---

Craig Tucker doesn't find peanut butter and honey sandwiches at all appetizing, but he brings it for lunch anyways. He knows it's Tweek's favorite, he asked the day before. He offers to share it with Tweek at lunch, hoping that it will bribe the other into liking him again, or at least get him to start sitting with Craig again. But Tweek refuses, flustered and nervous, and Craig watches with stilled eyes as Tweek scurries off. The rage that flares when he sees Tweek go to sit with those jerks is not expected, but he is not very surprised. Not much can surprise Craig.

Those jerks don't deserve his Tweek. He watches with cool disinterest as Kyle and Stan talk with Tweek, watches as Tweek laughs nervously at something Cartman says and watches as Kenny leans over to press his fingers against Tweek's forehead and push his hair out of his eyes. The peanut butter forms into a solid lump inside of his mouth and he has to struggle to swallow it, his appetite lost. The remainder of his lunch falls with a heavy, distant thud onto his lunch bag and he stands up quickly to throw it away, his expression not betraying the rage boiling slowly inside of him as he passes in front of the table.

How come he couldn't make Tweek blush like that?

It was decided then. He knows what he has to do, now. And as he watches the sandwich tumble into the pile of slowly growing trash, Craig Tucker knows that no one will ever have Tweek, especially if he can't.


	2. Two

**A/N: **This story is NOT for those who are easily disturbed or upset. This story is intended to be very morbid and macabre and will contain subjects that most of the population find upsetting. In case you're wondering, these subjects will be along the lines of: stalking, torture, morbid/macabre love, death, suicide, rape and so on, so forth. If any of these subjects upset you, PLEASE do not read this fanfic!

If, however, you enjoy reading something that may disturb your mind slightly, then please continue.

Also, I may forget to update it on , but the LJ version will be updated as soon as the next chapter is written. On top of that, some of what is written will be edited out before published here because of it's extremely mature content. If you'd like to read the unedited LJ version, you can find it at my LJ at: ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com

_Like Pinning Butterflies_ is based off of 'The Horror of Our Love' by Ludo

**In Response: **Wow! I really didn't expect to get any reviews on the first chapter but to get them so quickly, it made me really happy! Also, it made me happy to see several people add the story to their alerts list/favorite/etc. Remember, though, comments are love and without them, I wouldn't write! Even if it's just a simple: update soon! or I love it! These make me very happy.

* * *

_I've murdered half the town, _

_Left you love notes on their headstones,_

_I'll fill the graveyards, _

_Until I have you. _

* * *

The playground had long ago been a bright, colorful blob that stood out against the bleak winter backdrop. It had been cheaply constructed and had no maintenance ever done to it and there had been plenty of injuries sustained while playing on the play set, but it had been a cheerful thing nonetheless and kids enjoyed it. Now the bright colors that had once adorned it were faded and dull, unable to escape the ever-constant press of time. It blended in more properly with the gray winter sky behind it now. Stripped of its color, it was no different from everything else and, gradually, it was forgotten by everyone. Without color, it was dull, unimportant and not worth remembering.

Craig likens it to himself. Both are objects that had been robbed of their color and emotion, both discarded by society and those who had once loved them, both faded, dull and broken, both not worthy of remembering without that splash of color to set them apart from the sky, pregnant with snow clouds. Both had faded into the sky, forgotten.

Craig's fingers twist around two poles, holding the cool metal against his palms as his feet dangle in the air. From here, he can watch as Tweek struggles to play football with those jerks. The boy's shock of blond hair sets him apart from the others, makes him stick out like white against a black backdrop, like the yang inside of yin.

Tweek has not faded with time, he has not lost the bright color that encircles him and he has stubbornly remained as bright as ever.

Craig thinks he's beautiful. Like that single face one is able to identify on a spinning merry-go-round, even after the others have all melted together in a surreal whirl of color. And when Craig pictures it in his mind, suddenly everything makes sense and he's able to separate black from white and he can just reach that normalcy he craves as he pushes the dull gray shroud off of his shoulders, struggling to become black or white and not somewhere stuck in between. But then Tweek's face is lost and the merry-go-round vanishes and all that is left is Craig sitting alone on the playground, just as gray and dull as he had been before.

Craig wishes he could have Tweek, he wishes that he could have that color that Tweek does.

But he knows it's too late to save his color and as he watches the pigskin go sailing through the air he wonders if it will hurt Tweek much when he kills him and stamps out that vibrant flash of color, so bright that it makes his chest ache with want. He wonders if Tweek knows he's so colorful and if he'll be able to feel it as his color fades away. And, staring intently at Tweek, Craig wonders if the world will mourn its colorful loss or if it will just keep spinning, blissfully unaware of the face lost on the merry-go-round of life.

The teams had been divided rather unfairly, but they know it had been done purposely to their disadvantage. Tweek, Kenny and Butters have been placed on one team while Kyle, Stan and Cartman dominate the other. Tweek and Kenny are the fastest on the field (Tweek only if someone is chasing him), but their speed is stunted by Cartman's love to tackle them into the dirt. Besides, Stan and Kyle are perfectly coordinated with each other, impossible to stop, flowing their movements together like a pair of dancers. The game is over before it ever begins.

Butters sends the ball flying just before Stan plows into him. Out of some miracle, Tweek captures the ball in his arms and Cartman rounds upon him. Before he knows it, Tweek is dashing down the field with Kenny flanking his side to prevent Cartman from tackling him. They're both flying across the earth, Tweek driven by panic and Kenny driven by… what? Tweek wonders idly as he glances over to the other blonde. Desire to win? And they almost make it before something sends Kenny flying into Tweek, who yells out in surprise, stumbling to regain his balance before Cartman's huge mass smashes into Tweek and Kenny, sending them both to the ground in a groaning, crumpled heap.

Somewhere, Stan and Kyle are bitching at Cartman for playing dirty and Butters is trying to keep the peace, but all their words are lost to Tweek amid the clamor of Kenny's heart and his own. They're pressed into the ground together, Kenny on top of Tweek and, despite the ache in his bones, Tweek almost feels safe. He wants to press closer to the source of comfort but doesn't and before he has time to regret it, Kyle and Stan are helping them up from the dirt.

"Oh, wow, guys, I'm like, so sorry." Cartman says with politeness, though they all know he's faking it. "I didn't realize that we were playing football with a bunch of sissies."

His words go ignored by everyone as Kenny brushes himself off and Tweek stands there, gripping furiously onto the ball and shaking. Kenny presses a hand to Tweek's shoulder and mumbles something that Tweek doesn't quite catch.

Stan nods in agreement with whatever Kenny just said and then adds in. "Yeah, dude, what happened with you and Craig?"

The name makes him jump a little more before twitching and asking in a strained tone. "What do you mean?"

"What do we mean?" Kyle repeats, as if the question were directed to Stan and Kyle as one collective conscience. "Dude, he's been staring at you for months and you're acting even jumpier than usual."

"Kahl's right," Cartman begins in a serious tone of voice. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's out for blood."

Tweek yells out in distress and the others are going off at Cartman again, berating him for scaring the living crap out of Tweek every other minute. Kenny laughs quietly in the background before turning back to Tweek.

"Don't worry about it," Kenny says, lightly patting Tweek's back. "Craig is messed up, but all those rumors aren't true. He can't do anything to hurt you."

Tweek wants to ask Kenny how he knows, but doesn't. Instead, he tries to laugh it off and makes up some excuse that he has to get home.

"Aw, mahn," Cartman starts to whine, huffing loudly. "Now we're going to be uneven," as if they hadn't been before. "So lame, Tweek, sooo lame."

Before Tweek can freak out or apologize, Kenny gives a little wave and says, "It's cool, Tweek invited me over for dinner." Tweek thanks whatever force had possessed Kenny to and made him say that.

At least now he won't have to walk home alone.

Craig Tucker thinks that, maybe, he should have considered becoming an actor. He has always had an uncanny ability to fake emotions when he himself was emotionless. His is a good liar and most people are too easy to trick.

When Craig had seen what happened during the football game, he had actually been overcome with a fierce stream of unlabeled emotion; how dare Cartman hurt Tweek like that? And how dare Kenny touch him like that and tell him everything would be alright? What did he know?

But the emotion quickly froze over and was replaced by the cool, hard logic. Craig already knew then what he had to do and it doesn't upset him in the least. Tweek must stay protected and remain his alone, no matter what.

He chooses Cartman first, because Kenny went home with Tweek and he is too resilient to kill, like a cockroach, refusing to die. Craig will figure out how to deal with him at a later time.

Cartman falls easily into his trap, gobbling up one of Craig's specially baked cookies. It's almost pathetic to Craig, to see the idiot fall so quickly and with hardly any effort on Craig's part. He doesn't suspect a thing as he greedily stuffs the cookie into his mouth, crumbs falling from his mouth as he chomps down on the desert. Craig stares intently at him, his gaze dead, indifferent, uncaring. It remains that way, even when Cartman gurgles unexpectedly and plunges onto the pavement below, his body overcome with convulsions.

Craig knows that he will never be prosecuted for the act. In South Park, when someone dies or goes missing, people blame it on natural causes or they stop looking. Craig figures that anywhere is better than this place and that's why no one ever sees 'Have You Seen This Face?' on the side of milk cartons or at the grocery bulletin boards.

---

Tweek wishes that he had taken up on Kenny's offer to sleep over, he wishes that his parents weren't away visiting relatives and, most of all, he wishes he weren't so scared of Craig. He's not sure what was happening to the other, but he knows that he doesn't like it at all.

It's dark outside now and Tweek has already turned his light off, crawled up beneath the covers in a vain attempt to get some sleep. He knows he won't.

Somewhere between all the tossing and turning, Tweek slips into a frail sleep, disturbed by a soft tink! against his window. In a lucid state of mind, his eyes open wearily, drooping before there's another tink! and he's semi-awake, legs moving to automatically slide out of bed. For a minute or two, he had completely forgotten about Craig and his problems but by the time he reaches his window, every nightmare awakes with screaming horror inside of his mind.

Craig is outside his window.

And he's not alone.

---

Craig's muscles move fluidly and smoothly as he works beneath the light of the moon. He dumps shovels full of fresh dirt back into the deep, dark pit he had dug. Cartman's body is still twitching as he does so, though it will soon be covered up completely. A smile slides onto his lips, but he cannot identify the emotion that it belongs to.

He hopes that Tweek is still watching. This was all for him, after all, and Craig would hate for him to miss his present. Cartman gives a final, strangled gurgle as dirt pours into his open mouth before he disappears beneath the layer of earth. Craig knows that Cartman will not die right away, that he will be alive and he will know that he's about to die before he actually does. Craig also knows that it will choke and overcome him slowly and he knows that the worms will crawl across his body to devour him, slipping in through his nose and out of his mouth or eyes. The thoughts bring another, emotionless smile onto his lips and he pushes the remainder of dirt into place, letting out a long sigh.

Slow flakes of snow begin to drift down from the sky, the patch of fresh earth will be frozen and covered by morning and a blanket of purity, innocence will hide his sin. Standing in Tweek's backyard, he drags his eyes up and gazes intently at the pallid face that is watching him with horror writ plainly across it. Craig smiles yet again and wonders what Tweek is thinking and if he can read lips or not. Because Craig is quite sure that he's saying 'I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you' as if stuck on a loop.

He doesn't know how long he had been standing there, but he's leaving now and aware that Tweek still remains in the window. He has other deaths to plan, other bodies to bury in Tweek's backyard. He cannot be distracted by anything else, even if it was the beautifully pale face in the window, framed by inky blackness and shrouded in absolute terror.

He has work to do.


	3. Three

**A/N: **This story is NOT for those who are easily disturbed or upset. This story is intended to be very morbid and macabre and will contain subjects that most of the population find upsetting. In case you're wondering, these subjects will be along the lines of: stalking, torture, morbid/macabre love, death, suicide, rape and so on, so forth. If any of these subjects upset you, PLEASE do not read this fanfic!

If, however, you enjoy reading something that may disturb your mind slightly, then please continue.

Also, I may forget to update it on , but the LJ version will be updated as soon as the next chapter is written. On top of that, some of what is written will be edited out before published here because of it's extremely mature content. If you'd like to read the unedited LJ version, you can find it at my LJ at: ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com

_Like Pinning Butterflies_ is based off of 'The Horror of Our Love' by Ludo

**In Response: **Remember, though, comments are love and without them, I wouldn't write! Even if it's just a simple: update soon! or I love it! These make me very happy.

Also, the next chapter will be much more sexually graphic so I will be editing out the smut and posting that portion only on my Livejournal ( ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com )

* * *

_Moonlight walking _

_I smell your softness _

_Carnivorous and lusting _

_To track you down among the pines _

* * *

Craig was not invited to the party. The invitation was by word of mouth and, though nearly everyone in the senior year was invited, they hadn't bothered to invite Craig. No one ever did, nowadays. Not after he had to start seeing a therapist once a day. When kids found out about that they started to treat him differently, like he crazy. And soon after that, rumors began to spread like acid through dead flesh and everyone became more distant. Kids stopped in the hallways to whisper and stare, saying that there was something very wrong with him --- that he had beat someone up for looking at him the wrong way or that he had killed someone.

Eventually all of the rumors morphed into a false truth, the main story being that Craig had murdered a kid at school, but had gotten away with it because they couldn't find any solid evidence to prove his guilt. And, slowly, Craig began to accept these rumors as the truth.. What other reason could he give to explain how emotionless he was? Craig Tucker was a cold, distant sociopath. Craig Tucker was a murderer.

He had a problem.

And that problem was only getting worse.

He had already killed Eric Cartman and gotten away with it months ago. He was ready to move on to kill Kenny McCormick and then anyone else who decided to get in his way. (And once they were all gone and he had Tweek to himself, he'd kill Tweek.

That was the only way to get the blonde out of his mind, he had convinced himself long ago. If Tweek were dead then he would no longer have anyone to obsess about. And if no one was left for him to obsess about, then Craig Tucker would return to how he had been before. Normal.

And so, he stands outside of Token's house, staring up at it with what could be classified as arrogance. In reality, Craig Tucker felt nothing of the sort. Nothing but the strong and very solid desire to hunt down Tweek, to show him what pain he's truly caused. Craig Tucker will watch him bleed out. And he will press his ear to the blonde's soaking and heaving chest, listening to the slowly receding thumps and imagining that they were beating to the tune of 'I love you' as the life fades out of Tweek's eyes.

That's how it happens in fairy tales, right? There is always true love at the end. Why should his fairy tale be any different, even if it was taking place in South Park instead of some fantasyland?

He steps forward and into the house, loud music thumping, dim lights flashing with sudden bursts of vibrant color that briefly illuminate the faces of the crowd as they dance. Alcohol and who knows what else sloshes freely about the bodies, being passed from person to person in red plastic cups, losing a bit more to the floor every time it is passed. Sweaty corpses (that's all they really are, right?) cling to one another on couches, rocking and jerking against their partners for the night. Someone will go home pregnant, someone with herpes, someone without their virginity and someone with a broken heart.

Amid all the clamor and sweat, no one notices Craig as he slips among the crowds; no one notices Tweek yell; even if they do notice, no one cares.

---

Tweek hadn't wanted to go to the party. Even if Token had once been a very close friend, he hadn't wanted to leave his house and even risk being outside, being somewhere that Craig could find him. Still, Kenny managed to show up on his doorstep and had been able to convince him into coming.

If it had been anyone else, Tweek would have refused to go. With Kenny, though, Tweek could feel a sense of security. He almost felt safe walking up to Token's house, though he jerked in nervousness every now and then, imagining that he could see Craig following them. Kenny did his best to comfort him and by the time they were inside, Tweek was lulled into a false sense of security. And then Kenny was dragging him along, introducing him to people, taking unknown beverages and swigging them down. Tweek followed in a sort of daze, green eyes scanning his surroundings every now and then, paranoia forcing him to keep an eye out for Craig.

Kenny is trying to get him to take a shot of something when it happens. Craig walks in through the front door, face impassive as he scans the crowd. No one seems to notice his entrance, nor the large knife he's holding at his side. Tweek freezes and his fingers tighten slowly around Kenny's, his mossy green eyes going wide with horror as they stare, legs unable to run and body unable to move. Time seems to slow down as Craig's blue-grey eyes lock for a single second with his wide, horrified ones. Tweek swears that he can hear time freeze for that short frame; he swears that everyone stops moving and that sound ceases to exist. Then Craig takes a step forward and it is all that he needs to break the spell of stiffness. Tweek screeches out in alarm and jerks Kenny along behind him as he shoves his way blindly through the crowd, certain that Craig is following.

The two blondes stumble and run with one another, Kenny's voice lost among the thousands of other noises that Tweek is blocking out. All he can hear as he pushes wildly through the sea of people is his own name being called, practically whispered but yet loud enough to be right beside him. He ignores it and runs, the room spinning beneath his feet, lights flashing before his eyes, faces in close up, mouths moving, expressions miming concern or shock, music melting into nothing but background noise, fingers still gripping tight onto his own, sweaty grip unbroken, alcohol burning his throat and eyes watering as he struggles to scream out, Help! God, please help me! End the madness, please, god, help me! And then it all goes dark, voices clear but muffled from inside the closet.

Tweek's chest is heaving, but he has one hand clamped down over his mouth to prevent the noise of his own gasps. Kenny groans from somewhere beside him and for a moment, Tweek is seized with the fear that in the confusion, he grabbed a hold of Craig instead of Kenny and that now Craig is sitting in the closet beside him. He forces himself to steal a glance and relaxes only very slightly when his fears are erased.

"Tweek, what the fu-" Kenny begins to hiss before Tweek pushes his hand desperately against Kenny's mouth, eyes silently pleading.

Kenny slackens slowly against the hand and nods, agreeing to silence for now. Outside of the closet, Tweek can hear the party rage on but no longer hears his name being called. He knows that it doesn't mean Craig's not out there, though.

What seems like eternity passes by. Kenny is just about to break the silence when a pair of slow-moving feet pass the crack of light beneath the door. Tweek's heart begins to speed up again and he's trembling as he snaps his eyes shut and squeezes Kenny's hand until it threatens to snap.

"Tweek?" Craig's voice is quiet, almost kind. "Please come out, Tweek." The blonde doesn't fall for it. "Tweek?" He drifts somewhere in front of the door and Tweek feels as if his heart is going to explode. "I just want to talk about why you've been ignoring me lately, Tweek." The blonde flinches and he grips Kenny's hand to his chest, holding back a sob. "You're hurting me, Tweek."

Tweek wonders if Craig will open the door and with held breath, he watches the handle as it twists ever so slightly. He can imagine that Craig's fingers are wrapped around it, rubbing against the cool metal -- his nose twitching as he sniffs out the scent of fear and sweat on his prey. Tweek imagines seeing the door open all the way and Kenny throwing himself onto Craig, beating the piss out of him.

But he waits there with bated breath, watching the handle jiggle yet never turn completely. His ears prick with noise, suddenly aware that there's a scraping noise somewhere down along the hallway and only then does he realize he had been imagining the handle turning. But why hadn't Craig opened the door?

"Tweek," he twitches when Kenny calls his name and nearly flinches away when the other places a hand onto his shoulder. "What the hell is going on?"

---

Craig walks slowly down the hall, trailing one finger along the wall as he walks, feeling the tip of it go numb from the sensation of rubbing against the paint. Numb, distant --- just like the rest of him. Learning to play alive. He continues to swirl it along the surface, pausing now and then to open a pine-wood door and peer inside the room it closed off. Most times, it reveals a pair of sweaty bodies clutching onto one another, rocking blindly into their partner, unaware of the monster in the doorway.

He continues down the hallway, ears waiting to catch Tweek's voice, his heavy breathing, or the soft footfall of someone trying to run. Once he reaches the end, Craig's expression flickers into something that resembles disdain towards the wall he is now staring at. It doesn't stop him, though, and he turns to walk the other way.

"Tweek!" He yells loudly, shoving open a door, fingers squeezing around the knife. "Oh, Tweek! Please come out," He presses open another door, eyes glinting with the prospect of finding his blond conquest behind it. "I just want to talk with you~"

Craig Tucker continues, his heart held tight in his throat, beating steadily as he imagines of what he'll do to Tweek whenever he finally finds him. It takes only a sidelong glance out the window to cause his heart to thump heavily back down into his chest cavity, it only takes a glimpse to see a pair of blondes running hand in hand to a rusty old truck. He's almost surprised by the lack of rage he feels as he watches the two scramble inside. And while his heart clamors out of a sudden desperation to give chase, he is calm as he watches the truck zip down the street.

With the way that Kenny is driving, Craig hopes that Tweek will not die an early death.

A slow smile pulls its way onto his lips as he runs his free hand smoothly along the wall, the other occupied with rearing back and slamming the knife into the wall. He watches in silence, smile pasted in place and repeatedly drags the knife away before slamming it back into the wall, over and over and over again. He was so close. So close -- he can almost taste the sweat of Tweek's fear burning on the tip of his tongue and dripping down the back of his throat. Craig presses his cheek against the window, black and dripping with the condensation of the evening; he drives his knife into the wall a final time and stares at his reflection in the blade. While he could have sworn he had been smiling moments ago, there was no such hint of it now in the reflection. Only cold, hard indifference that was set off by the swatch of black hair that drifted in front of his eyes.

And as Craig stares at himself, all he can think about is the one thing that can set his plans back onto the right track again.

How wonderful it will be once Kenny is dead.


	4. Four

**A/N: **This story is NOT for those who are easily disturbed or upset. This story is intended to be very morbid and macabre and will contain subjects that most of the population find upsetting. In case you're wondering, these subjects will be along the lines of: stalking, torture, morbid/macabre love, death, suicide, rape and so on, so forth. If any of these subjects upset you, PLEASE do not read this fanfic!

If, however, you enjoy reading something that may disturb your mind slightly, then please continue.

Also, I may forget to update it on , but the LJ version will be updated as soon as the next chapter is written. On top of that, some of what is written will be edited out before published here because of it's extremely mature content. If you'd like to read the unedited LJ version, you can find it at my LJ at: ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com

_Like Pinning Butterflies_ is based off of 'The Horror of Our Love' by Ludo

**In Response: **Remember, though, comments are love and without them, I wouldn't write! Even if it's just a simple: update soon! or I love it! These make me very happy.

This chapter will be much more sexually graphic so I will be editing out the smut and posting that portion only on my Livejournal ( ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com ). If you want to read the full, unedited version, go there.

* * *

_I want you stuffed into my mouth_

_Hold you down _

_And tear you open _

_Live inside you_

* * *

The once pure white winter has now become an ugly grey-brown of melting snow. The snow that once covered the streets with a smooth, white glaze is quickly being overrun by the heat and sin that swirls dangerously in the town's air. Something as pure and as untouched as a drift of snow couldn't remain in South Park, not for long. Even the passing of a single day leaves an ugly, grey scar in the purest of snow, tainting it with pollution and filth. And now that's beginning to warm up in South Park, those grey gatherings of dirt are melting, unable to stand the rise in temperature. The snow is receding to sink into the earth and Craig supposes that it's better that way. Without the blanket of innocence to hide its sins, South Park is as ugly in appearance as it is beneath its exterior.

Nothing to hide behind anymore.

Craig supposes he should feel relieved that his mask does not fade with the changing of seasons, but he feels no such emotion as the slush sloshes underfoot. He rarely feels anything these days other than the solid desire for Tweek and the confusion that it causes him. He knows how to pretend -- years of playing stupid games as a child had taught him that much, and most people could not see past his disguise. Most people are deaf to the cries of a tortured soul who simply desires something real to define itself with. His therapist, however, is not as deaf as most people – she merely has selective hearing and a thought process that has been restricted by years of studying books. Many times she's come so close to figuring Craig out, but just as she reaches the final stretch, she stops. And by the way she stares at Craig, he knows that she could finish it if she wasn't so afraid of what she may find once she crosses over into his mind.

Craig knows that he should be afraid of her, be afraid of being found out for what a sick monster he is. But he isn't afraid. Part of him doesn't care. The other part almost wants her to find out. He knows she never will, though. He knows that there are certain lines a human being is too afraid to cross and that the threshold of his mind is one of them.

In any case, Craig likes his therapist. She gives him the chance to test how truly far he can go with his mask hanging partially off. Today, when he sits down in the comfy chair across from her desk, he'll try something different.

She asks how he is, how his day was, what he plans to do later and he tells her the truth – almost.

"I'm going over to a friend's house."

"Oh? Were you invited over?"

"No," a smile twitches at his lips. "It's a surprise."

"That's nice." She says, apparently happy that he has friends. "What are you two going to do?"

"He wants to be a doctor; I'm going to show him some of my aunt's things."

"A doctor, wow." Another smile was on her lips. "Is he a very close friend?"

"The closest I have."

"Why's that?"

Craig's smile flickers for a moment, as if dazed by the question, before it returns full force. "He makes me feel alive."

She makes a face at his answer and proceeds to ask more about the peculiar response.

Craig nods slightly and continues to answer the questions, but his mind is lost in thought. Why does Tweek matter so much to him? Why him -- of all the people in South Park -- why him? And what exactly is he to Craig? These questions had plagued his mind before, but now was the first time he had ever felt truly compelled to find the answers.

He leaves the office without a solid clue as to why he feels so strongly for Tweek. He had tried to explain it away with the color theory, but found the answer unsatisfactory. He tries to chase away all thoughts on the matter as he takes the shortcut home. He needs a clear mind for tonight.

---

The house is nearly silent; Tweek's parents are gone again and the blonde doesn't really know where this time around. But it's okay; Kenny is spending the night and this means that Tweek may be able to sleep without waking up periodically to noises outside of his window. He's plenty thankful that Kenny is spending the night and that the other blond doesn't seem to mind all the time they spent together, especially as of late.

[edited out]

This is all they do when they're together lately. Kenny comes over, they talk for a bit and then they fill the empty house with the squeaks of Tweek's bed. And Tweek isn't complaining -- he loves that he has an excuse to always ask Kenny over; a mask of lust to hide his fear. Besides, Kenny _never_ refuses a chance to make Tweek scream in ecstasy. So it all works out.

Tonight is different, though Tweek cannot label why it is so -- it simply is. Kenny tugs their bodies apart, panting, gazing down at the other's flushed face. Tweek cannot give a name to the look that Kenny gives him, it is something deeper than just lust or desire and it's driving Tweek crazy that he can't figure it out. Usually, at this point, they would squirm into a better position and Kenny would thrust into Tweek while telling him every imaginable word of empty love he could think of. But Kenny doesn't do that tonight -- instead he pulls away and says something that boggles Tweek's mind.

"I'll be right back."

So Tweek watches him exit the dark room, his figure nothing more than a dark silhouette against an equally dark backdrop. And as he sits there, knees pulled up to his chest and arousal throbbing desperately, he wonders what that could possibly be about.

It takes almost five minutes before Tweek hears the door click and sees Kenny's shadow slide back into the room. He sinks back down onto the bed and sighs with relief. If it hadn't been for the quiet noises coming from across the hall in the bathroom, Tweek would've panicked and feared that Kenny had left him.

"What-what were you doing?" Tweek asks, shuddering. He doesn't push it too far, he knows that Kenny has issues and secrets just like everyone else -- just like Tweek. If Kenny doesn't tell him then Tweek will try to forget it. He doesn't want to risk their friendship – or whatever it is that they have together.

Kenny doesn't answer him -- not a very big surprise, and crawls back onto the bed, on top of Tweek to pin him down. He slips up higher and is suddenly kissing Tweek with a hunger unmatched. His lips are viciously pressing against Tweek's and his tongue is dipping into his mouth and his hips are rolling down into Tweek's and he's gasping softly and he's holding on so tight and he leans close to his ear and he hisses and very suddenly Tweek is aware…

This is not Kenny McCormick.

---

"Why won't you love me?"

The gasp that follows is to die for and Craig Tucker wishes he could've recorded it so he could put it on repeat. Then again, everything about Tweek makes him wish he could have a camera to follow him around all the time, just to watch the other, to observe how goddamn beautiful he was.

But he has work to do.

Craig pushes Tweek back into the bed, his teeth biting hard into sensitive neck flesh just to hear the blonde let out a shriek of terror. He only bites harder, his fingers going up to wrap tightly around Tweek's throat, his other hand absently searching through a bag while his hips keep Tweek pinned to the bed.

"This is what you get for ignoring me." Craig whispers, his voice lost amid the screams and cries for help. His fingers tighten around Tweek, earning a choked cry from the other. Tweek is thrashing wildly but Craig's grip never loosens, not even in the slightest. "This is what you get for all that you've done to me."

[edited] Craig watches, his eyes following the path of tears and not once feeling a hint of remorse or regret for causing them.

"Why're you crying?" He asks, a hint of rage in his voice. "Kenny does this to you; you don't cry when he does it." He is not jealous, though his wording suggests he is. He is just being rational. "You love it when Kenny fucks you, I've seen the way you come and I've heard all the dirty noises you make. I've seen you do it to yourself, too, while you're imagining it's him." Tweek is sobbing even louder now. "You don't cry then. Why is that, Tweek? Because you two can just fuck and forget, and Kenny won't care if you forget him?"

Tweek is sobbing now beneath him, begging him to please stop, that this will ruin their friendship and a thousand other lies that make Craig want to vomit. He'll say anything now to keep Craig from continuing. He'd even say 'I love you' if he told him to.

It makes Craig Tucker feel sick.

"Stop crying." He commands as he pulls his fingers out, earning a cry of relief from Tweek. Craig can't help but smirk to himself – the poor boy thinks it's over. As Tweek shudders and cries quietly, Craig returns to rifling through the bag, searching until his fingers curl around a scalpel. He releases Tweek from his hold and leans forward, cold grey eyes looking into those wet green ones that had long ago grown wide with absolute terror.

"Please," Tweek whispers as he stares up at the other, trying to hold back his fear but failing horribly. "Please let me go."

"Not until you're fixed." Craig promises, enjoying the quiet sob that the other releases. "And then you're free."

"What-What do you mean?" Tweek looks so damn perfect as he lays there, body flushed red where bruises were sure to develop, his face a watery mess of tears and snot, his expression written in horror; the list could go on forever if Craig felt like making it.

But he has work to do.

The scalpel slices his hand open so neatly that it's almost beautiful, and he makes no recognition of pain as blood creeps up to the surface of the cut. Tweek is back to screaming again and as the medical tool makes a keen incision in his chest, Tweek's screams only grow louder. Craig smiles at the way the blood seeps up, at the way that it rolls in little streams down Tweek's thin chest. His hand, bleeding all over the sheets, presses down onto Tweek's torso, smearing their blood together. Tweek only sobs louder at this, no doubt paranoid that Craig is infection him with some disease; he needn't worry -- that wouldn't be the right way to kill Tweek, though the consideration had passed his mind once or twice.

Craig pulls his hand back only to stare at the other's chest, admiring the beautiful way the blood spreads about his skin, painting it bright red. It's perfect – a fantasy come to life and every bit as beautiful as he thought it would be.

True to his word, as soon as Craig is finished rubbing their blood together and admiring the sight, he releases Tweek and watches as the blond bolts wildly from the room.

---

He doesn't know where to go, where he can hide from Craig while he tries to call the police. He can't do this anymore; he cannot suffer the other's heavy gaze for another moment, especially now that Craig is acting on his silent threats. He wants out.

Tweek dashes into the bathroom to hide -- it's the only room with a working lock. Keeping the lights off in hopes that Craig won't notice, Tweek fumbles with the phone he had grabbed off of the dresser as he ran from the room. His fingers are trembling as he pushes in 9-1-1 and prepares to hit the 'send' button.

But a noise catches his ears; it's a noise that sounds remarkably like the labored breathing of someone waiting to die and it is this noise that ultimately grabs his attention and makes his fingers loosen around his lifeline until it drops to the ground. Fingers fumbling, he manages to flick the switch and immediately regrets that he did.

A loud scream pierces the still air of the house as mossy green eyes find themselves staring down at Kenny McCormick. He can't look away, though his head is spinning and he wants to puke and he's growing so dizzy that he fears he may faint.

The tub is filled up, not with bathwater but with Kenny's blood which drips slowly from a messy incision in his neck and from god only knows where else. His chest cavity is sliced open and pulled apart; his heart sitting nearly still in his chest, needles protruding from the organ at various angles. And the worse part is that, somehow, Kenny is still breathing. The dulling blue eyes flash for a moment before they're staring directly at Tweek. Kenny's lips move but no sound comes out, only blood. Tweek screams again and spins wildly around to the door, forgetting that he locked it as he smashes on the wood, begging to be released.

On the mirror behind him, words glisten with the slick blood from Kenny's body.

We'll Always Be Together

---

Craig's lips twitch with satisfaction when he hears Tweek scream. He's still sitting on Tweek's bed, eyes clouded over with lust as he slowly moves his hand inside of his pants, hips rolling and breaths coming in sharp gasps.

Blood still stains the bed and he supposes he should get to cleaning it up, but he doesn't bother. [edited] He keeps Tweek's forgotten underwear pressed against his face so he can savor the other's scent while he jerks off to the fresh memory that was slowly sinking into his brain.

[edited] He is filled with the satisfying knowledge that Tweek will never be able to forget him and that when he does finally get around to killing the blonde, they'll always be together.

He collapses down against the sheets, his throbbing member covered in his own seed and blood, both his and Tweek's. Craig Tucker closes his eyes and reaches down to touch himself again, soft sighs slipping from between his lips as he imagines Tweek's blood coursing through his veins, trapped for eternity.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Yes, I am aware that the graphic parts can probably be posted on here and I will be safe. However, I want this to remain more of a 'clean' version. So, if you want to read the full, unedited thing, go read it on Livejournal and make sure to review it there! =D ( ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com )


	5. Five

**A/N: **I'm sorry this update took so long, life caught up with me and I had to devote my attention to it, unfortunately. =/ However, I'd like to thank those who are still watching/reading this.

Also! I want to get a playlist together so send me the title of any songs and the artists that remind you of this fanfic! Other than, obviously, The Horror of Our Love by Ludo. =3

Also, Also, I'd like some more betas! If you're interested, let me know. Enjoy!

* * *

_Love, I'd never hurt you. _

_But I'll grind against your bones_

_Until our marrows mix, _

_I will eat you slowly. _

* * *

When Craig cornered Kenny in the bathroom, the blonde had been taken completely off guard. He had been so easy to smash into the wall, so easy to watch as sweet, bright blood trickled from a crack in his skull. He could still hear Kenny's quiet gasps, quiet pleas, insisting that it didn't have to be this way if only Craig would give him the chance.

He knew what Craig was doing.

That had given him slight pause. He almost stopped in the middle of carving open Kenny's chest with a scalpel, almost allowed the other's words to truly get to him and to twist his already twisted mind. Kenny must have known how it affected Craig, how it made him stop, because even though he was struggling to cry out past his killer's hand, Craig could feel those devious, evil, sinful, damned lips stretch up into a smirk.

It wasn't that Craig was worried that Kenny knew about everything he did. No, that didn't matter at all. Kenny would be dead in only a moment's time and that would solve that. What bothered Craig, really, was the fact that Kenny knew. And the only way for Kenny to have known about that was if Tweek told him.

Tweek had to have been opening up to the dirty blonde he was now tearing into, enjoying the splatter of hot blood against his skin. Tweek was telling him things. The pain that clutched his heart was indescribable and, as if to erase it, he ended Kenny's life with a quick swipe, watching as the other gurgled and fell backwards into the tub.

He would show him.

He would show them all.

No one would take Tweek away from him.

---

Craig is laying in a slump on Tweek's bed, his chest rising and falling with each pant, blue-grey eyes staring up at the ceiling like the staccato style is the most interesting thing he has ever seen. For him, it really is the most interesting thing that he can find in the room, so far, especially when he can pick out the little patterns here and there that make the strangest of shapes. It's so damn beautiful.

The dark-haired male slips slowly away from the bed, ignoring the fact that he's probably getting his pants all stained, ignoring the fact that they're still partially undone as he picks his way towards the bathroom, heart pounding hard against his chest. Tweek's quiet sobs still echo within the tiled room, no doubt still trying to get over the fact that Craig had (quite) easily ended Kenny's life.

He knows how Tweek must feel at that moment, knows how hard it is at first to experience death, to see it happening around you and being so damn powerless to stop it. Craig knows what it's like to die over and over and over again. He only hopes that, by the time they are done, Tweek will know, too.

---

Tweek's fingers curl and uncurl time after time again, his rapid, panicked breathing not getting any softer or any easier as time in that small bathroom wears on. Though he doesn't mean to, every moment or two his mossy green eyes happen to wander over to the mess that had once been Kenny. And each and every time he gags, unable to stop the horrible retching that builds in his throat.

He has to get out. Before Craig comes back. Before Craig can touch him again. Before anyone else he cares for can die, before—

The blonde slumps down against the door, his head resting into the frame, eyes closed tight as one hand moves up to knead his worried brow. Tears are coming harder, faster. Normal people aren't meant to endure this type of stress, he tells himself, Normal people die, go crazy or explode. His eyes flick over the entirety of his bathroom, so desperate he's willing to take anything the Lord was willing to give that day.

And for the first time in about twelve years, Tweek is reciting the only prayer he knows by heart: 'Angel of god, my guardian dear, to whom god's love commits me here. Ever this day be at my side to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.' Quiet, beneath his breath, he repeats the short prayer continually, his eyes squeezing tight, shoulders quivering.

---

Craig's fingers curl and uncurl around the door handle as he listens to the other sobbing inside of the bathroom, his face still though emotion rocks his blood to a sickening roil inside of him. The excitement and trepidation he feels is overwhelming, the sensation brought on simply by knowing that Tweek is behind this door, that _he_ made Tweek feel this way. It thrills him.

Fingers tightening around the knob, he's struck by an out of place sob, a strange rhythm to the pants and gasps coming from beyond the divider. Dark blue, almost black, eyes swivel down to stare at his fingers clutching the knob and then up again, to stare deftly at the door, as if it would reveal the answers.

Tweek is… praying?

The last word is foreign to him, as it is to the majority of the small town, and he licks his lips, resisting the urge to test it upon the tip of his tongue. Praying.

And, all at once, it occurs to Craig Tucker what he has done. The blood stops churning long enough for his definitely dark blue eyes to widen and for the answer to slip inside quietly without alerting the monster. It's enough to make his stomach twist and his head to ache. And definitely enough to make him groan quietly and release the door, to step away, stricken with the thought: _He_ did this.

"Tweek," he pleads out quietly as he throws himself against the door, pounding at it with an open palm. Panic races through him faster than life itself and as he continues to pound on the door, he finds that it isn't locked and that Tweek is crouched, wide-eyed, near the sink.

---

The drastic swing of emotion is almost too much for Tweek to comprehend. The rush forward by his best friend, the panicked gaze in his eyes, the panic his own heart feels at the mere sight of Craig Tucker… it's all plenty enough to drive him into a dark madness from which he would never be able to recover.

But he doesn't go mad, he doesn't lose his mind even when Craig's arms move to encircle him and squeeze their bodies close together. He remains as still as he had been when his best friend burst into the room, eyes wide and wild with an array of emotions that Tweek had not seen for years.

Craig is quietly whispering things into his ear, things he does not believe nor should never believe. Things that have lost their touch with their overuse in society, things that Tweek wouldn't dare trust, things that mean nothing and so many things all at once. His horror's fingers are caressing his back and hair, the comforting little words turned to goose bumps on his flesh.

This is a weakness. And Tweek will take advantage of Craig's lapse in attention, in his generally entropic state of mind. For a moment, not much longer because he has no idea how long this will last, Tweek has to act as calmly and as perfectly as possible if he wants this to work.

Craig is still gripping onto him when Tweek's fingers curl around an abandoned, blood-soaked scalpel. With a reckless swing of his arm, he tries to drive it into his attacker but Craig is quicker and knocks Tweek's arm away with a noise akin to a snarl. Not that the blonde stops to ponder the strange noise, no, as soon as Craig knocks his arm roughly to the side, Tweek stumbles to his feet and then to the door, his eyes as wild as Craig's had once been. He scrambles, kicking and flailing whenever an arm gets too close to grabbing him, his voice cracking in his throat as he struggles to escape. So close, he thinks, so close.

He's flying down the staircase now, screaming at the top of his lungs, begging someone to hear him, anyone to hear him. But the only ones close enough to even catch his words are a dead boy and a monster.

There is a sudden tug on the back of his head and Tweek let's out a shriek, falling back and hard against the stairs.

So close, so close. He thinks as he stares at the ceiling, only vaguely aware of the sickly wet that mats the back of his head as his eyes droop.

Craig is groaning from somewhere above him and he can feel the other shifting, rocking back and forth in a rhythm that is oddly disturbing. Tweek struggles to steal at least a glance but finds himself unable to. Craig's fingers wrap slowly around his arm, squeezing and squeezing and squeezing until – SNAPCRUNCH goes the bone and all light and sense and stability and noise and tenderness and --

And then he's gone.

---


	6. Six

**A/N: **This story is NOT for those who are easily disturbed or upset. This story is intended to be very morbid and macabre and will contain subjects that most of the population find upsetting. In case you're wondering, these subjects will be along the lines of: stalking, torture, morbid/macabre love, death, suicide, rape and so on, so forth. If any of these subjects upset you, PLEASE do not read this fanfic!

If, however, you enjoy reading something that may disturb your mind slightly, then please continue.

Also, I may forget to update it on , but the LJ version will be updated as soon as the next chapter is written. On top of that, some of what is written will be edited out before published here because of it's extremely mature content. If you'd like to read the unedited LJ version, you can find it at my LJ at: ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com

_Like Pinning Butterflies_ is based off of 'The Horror of Our Love' by Ludo

**In Response: **Remember, though, comments are love and without them, I wouldn't write! Even if it's just a simple: update soon! or I love it! These make me very happy.

This chapter will be much more sexually graphic so I will be editing out the smut and posting that portion only on my Livejournal ( ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com ). If you want to read the full, unedited version, go there.

* * *

_I wake in terror, _

_Blackbirds screaming. _

_Dark cathedrals spilling midnight on their altars. _

_I'm your servant, my immortal; _

_Pale and Perfect. _

* * *

Blood covered Tweek Tweak is not beautiful.

Craig Tucker had been wrong.

The dripping, sticky and red blood is disgusting, especially the way it mats down the blonde strands of hair and cascades across a pale, slender neck. It makes Craig think angry things while watching it slip so very slowly and so very tauntingly along the beautiful skin beneath it.

It was not the blood, he decides, that had attracted him to Tweek in the first place. It was not that tender little blossom of red that had hovered on the boy's split lip. It was those lips -- not that blood -- those gorgeously pursed lips and the corner at which they met that made Craig's body yearn for his blonde friend. Those lips that whispered, quiet, disconnected phrases into Craig's ear every night after his eyes had closed and his mind had run blank. That slight corner at which they met, that was what Craig wanted so damn badly all this time. Not the blood. Not the pain it would bring when the blood surfaced. But those beautiful lips.

It is such a shocking revelation that Craig finds his knees growing weak, finds his heart speeding up, but ignores these dull and overused reactions in favor of cleaning off the hideously offending blood before it stains those wonderful lips forever.

He moves slowly, a killer with time to spare, to clean Tweek and free him from all that horrible blood. He moves gradually, to take care to wash up the blonde hairs, to gently massage Tweek's scalp where it had cracked very slightly, to slip his hands along every curve for as long as possible before Tweek wakes.

The entire process took well over an hour, but Craig worked quietly the entire time. He had done his best to clean it all off, done his very best to make sure that everything was set right and proper before he retreated to stand away and admire his handiwork.

He stands only a foot away as he gazes upon Tweek's form, grey-blue eyes wiping it up and down until he feels a sense of satisfaction and steps forward. A trickle of the stuff is at Tweek's mouth and he leans forward to kiss it away, smiling as he does so for he has finally pressed his yearning lips onto those beautiful ones.

"Tweek," his voice is quiet, so gentle he is not doubtful that the other will be startled by his being there if he wakes up. The blonde remains still and he leans down once more to leave a kiss upon that same corner, sighing gently as he parts and retreats to reflect upon all that he has done.

---

It is cold.

It is dark.

It is dusty.

His body aches and his head is sore and for the life of his being, he cannot recall how he got to be here. It is dark and he is squinting to try and capture an idea of where this cold, dark, dusty place is but he can't. There's a dim and flickering light coming from somewhere, not enough to see where he's at, but enough to let him know that he isn't going blind and that he is still very much alive.

But he has all the pain to remind him that he is alive and he doesn't need anything else to tell him and remind him that his heart is still beating strong and his brain is still churning out a hundred and one panicked thoughts as to where he could possibly be.

What is the last thing he remembers? Kenny's dead, lifeless shell of a body in the bathtub. Eyes staring at him like it was all his fault. Which, he supposes, it really is. iAll. His. Fault./i

But that isn't the last thing, no something else is shoving its way to the surface and he remembers Craig in the bathroom, remembers a prayer ignored by the angel's, remembers how hard and fast his heart had pumped when Craig pressed their bodies together and how clumsy his movements with the scalpel had been when it had been his own hope of survival. And he remembers how he ran down the hallway, madly, blindly, istupidly/i, thoughts of escape pumping his blood and urging his legs to ijust. keep. running./i. And how all the hope in the world couldn't have kept him safe from Craig, how no amount of prayer would ever have been able to save him and how no one would be able to hear him, no matter how hard he had been screaming. And how he had been shoved, how his mind had gone fuzzy like static on a screen and how he wasn't sure if Craig had been rocking, rocking, rocking, or if he had only imagined it to fill his fading mind with something. Some reason. But then he remembers the sickening crunch that had twisted his stomach into a knot, the sound of resistance failing when Craig had so easily snapped his arm. And then he remembers nothing.

But mostly importantly, he remembers not the pain, not the overwhelming amount of pain that had surely raced through him when his arm had been snapped so easily but he remembers that sound which serves now as a reminder of how weak he really is. That there is no hope. That, no matter what, Craig will always be there to capture him and show him every horror that he's never known.

He takes in a deep, shuddering breath as the tears threaten to coat his hazel eyes and he knows, for that frame of space that hangs in time, that he is going to die.

He struggles briefly against the binding that holds him down, but it proves to have very little effect and more or less just results in more frantic sobbing and vain attempts at an escape (if one could even call it that). He gasps for air and breaths in only the dust of the dank place, finding that it burns and scratches at his lungs and nostrils, burns and scratches as he swallows gulps of the air because he is not given any other option or choice as to what air he may breath.

He's going to die.

---

The confessional smells of death. The divider is dusty, all ragged and worn out and Craig is sure that the reason why is all the sins that must hang onto the cracked material. He can see it as clearly as night can see day. It makes him feel dirty, to have all this sin floating so freely around him, but he supposes that it shouldn't. After all, he is far from pure and that is why he is sitting in the tiny box.

Though there is no heavenly advocate sitting on the other side of the screen, Craig closes his eyes and sits down, heaving a sigh and he can almost hear the priest prompting him to begin. He crosses himself and the words are flowing, though it's been so very long, but they come quickly to his lips, as if they don't burn when they trickle out.

"O, heavenly Father, forgive me for I have sinned."

There is no response, but Craig's imagination is grown up enough to supply one for his own amusement. The father asks what sins he is guilty of. Craig wants to ask if the sins are specific, like the ones that Moses brought down. But he doesn't.

"Father, I have--" He stops himself, long enough to listen to the sobs coming from the altar. He closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath. It is not enough. "Father, my sins are…" Again, those ear piercing, heart wrenching, banshee toned screams and gasps and pleas are echoing off the walls and he brings his hands up to his face, cradles it slowly before falling forward, gripping onto his head with his elbows pressed between his knees as he rocks and groans, a horrible, wrenching noise that takes up all his might to summon.

The father is waiting patiently.

Craig straightens himself as the screams ebb away into quiet sobs and his grey-blue eyes slide in and out of focus as he stares at the cracked material used to create the divider that keeps them anonymous to one another. Craig doesn't know heaven and heaven doesn't know Craig.

He seizes the material by sliding his fingers into the tiny, perfect-for-the-tops-of-your-fingers holes and grips tight to it, his body raising off the bench, his lips quite nearly touching the dusty, sin soaked material as he hisses past the sin catcher, his voice a harsh string of words that no doubt make no sense to the priest, who can surely sense the hate and complete loss in Craig's voice and in his words.

He grips onto the material and he rises up against it, his hips pressing to the wall, his lips grazing the sins of perverted old men, dirty school girls and wives with too much time on their hands. He draws his tongue across them all and he tastes them and he's still hissing out his own sins, no doubt more than this confessional has ever had to remain witness to.

And as suddenly as that, he's done. His fingers loosen around the holes and he drops his hand, staring intently, waiting for a word from his heavenly father. Nothing comes and he sits back down, leans into the wall of the booth, listening to the heavy breathing that comes from the altar.

Craig knows what must be done.

---


	7. Seven

**A/N: **This story is NOT for those who are easily disturbed or upset. This story is intended to be very morbid and macabre and will contain subjects that most of the population find upsetting. In case you're wondering, these subjects will be along the lines of: stalking, torture, morbid/macabre love, death, suicide, rape and so on, so forth. If any of these subjects upset you, PLEASE do not read this fanfic!

If, however, you enjoy reading something that may disturb your mind slightly, then please continue.

Also, I may forget to update it on , but the LJ version will be updated as soon as the next chapter is written. On top of that, some of what is written will be edited out before published here because of it's extremely mature content. If you'd like to read the unedited LJ version, you can find it at my LJ at: ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com

Sorry for the delayed update, time has been short for me and it's hard to get around to updating/writing lately. As always, feel free to point out any errors made (I rarely beta my own writing). And, of course, please send me the names/bands/whatever of any songs you feel fit the story! =]

_Like Pinning Butterflies_ is based off of 'The Horror of Our Love' by Ludo.

* * *

_Such unholy heaving. _

_The statues close their eyes, _

_The room is changing. _

_Break my skin and drain me. _

---

There exists in this world such a heaving of the physical being that it often drives deeper and tangles, infects, the inner core beyond repair. In physical weakness, no matter how brief or little, any sort of crack and all the thoughts from one's mind and spirit leak out like horrible venom. And in this state, it is so much easier to say things that one would not normally say, or agree to the unagreeable. Clouded judgment always leads to clouded answers and clouded problems and with so much overcast, it's very quite impossible to know what is really hiding beneath it all. The body, unlike the mind, is such a weak and most fragile thing. It is always held in suspension, struggling restlessly somewhere between dark and light, unable to resist the tendrils of darkness for very long and always unable to float freely in the light. The body is a useless, bothersome thing and Craig rarely experiences pain or weakness anymore, a state for which he is very glad he had conditioned himself to. It is, generally, of an extreme advantage to him.

Until now.

He stumbles from the confessional, nostrils scorching with the reek of incense, with the putrid smells of impurities and now with the acidic burn of his own bile. He gasps as he doubles forward, body buckling as the noncontent of his stomach travels up and lands sickeningly on the floor to add its own stench to the melody already assaulting the should-have-been pure air. He closes his eyes, tries to drag in deep breaths of poorly ventilated oxygen, so tainted, so sickening that it chokes him as he struggles to swallow it down and he arches again, heaving his sick all over the dirty floor. Another gasp takes his lungs and another upheaval rises him up and then knocks him back down. After the third time, he is left on his hands and knees, staring down at the slowly spreading bile, gasping and gulping for the polluted air that burns so bad and leaves his head aching.

The sick smiles up at him from the floor, glinting black and deep red in the poor light.

The echo of his own thoughts is so loud that he cries out and clasps his hands over his ears, kneeling and rocking his body in place, dark eyes staring at the white Mother of God who is missing her pupils. Her hands are spread out slightly at an angle from her hips, palms upward. She is not quite smiling, but one could infer that the Mona-Lisa look on her face was pure, unless one looks closer and begins to wonder just what that tilt at the corner of her mouth could truly mean. Craig's eyes waver on her blank ones, undoubtedly meant to inspire fearful, obedient respect. His eyes eventually fall away from hers, traveling down and over her upturned palms, her cold, welcoming arms, the folds of her robe until they reach her bare feet with perfect stone toes curled around a black snake atop of the globe.

Craig wonders, his stomach and heart going so still, if Lucifer knew that he was falling before he hit the bottom. Or if, like so many others stricken and sick with hurt and love and confusion, he simply thought he was tripping.

His heart picks up a beat or two and his blood courses violently through his body and he's falling once again to the ground, gasping for air as his spine arches and his body jerks. The smell of incense rubs up against his nose and he cries out pitifully: why? why? why? It's a circle, a loop, and he's stuck inside of it and there's no God, no Holy Trinity, no love, no connection between the surreal and the real and most importantly, there is no existence. No source of life or conscious aside from him, himself and Tweek. Amen.

---

The stench is bad enough to make his eyes water. He grips tightly, with his good hand, onto the cool altar, groping blindly for the beginnings and endings of his binding, praying for just a moment longer, just a breath more of uttered insanity, so long as Craig stays gone. And, oh yes, he can hear all that unholy screeching, like a monster possessed by something unidentifiable, some demon that has wormed inside and makes Craig scream like there's no end to the world.

He jumps and jitters at every shriek, winces when it's too loud and begs his mind to slacken for the noise to just please. stop.

_It's too much._ Silence draws a breath. _I'll never last._

And he takes a moment to grit his teeth together, as if trying to hold everything inside and that troubling thought rises like such a troublesomely slow bubble and all he can think of now is that stupidly troublesome thought and it's there, troubling him to no end.

_I'm going to die._

He's going to die.

---

Craig slides his hand over the smooth globe, his fingers struggling to find some hold to sink into but finding nothing, nothing at all. It's so perfect. How inaccurate.

He doesn't know that he is screaming, he isn't aware of the noise that resonates in the cathedral like devils possessed, not aware of how loudly and how desperately he moans and groans.

All he sees, all he hears, are held within the contents of his own scrambled mind.

He stands and buries his head within the bosom of Mother Mary, breathing in her stone scent and wondering, wondering how much longer it will be.

---

The blond trembles and clutches more violently along the bottomside of the stone cold altar, sobbing. He pulls on something and it gives and he brings it up very slightly, letting it catch the light so he can see it. It's a cross. A bronze cross. He cries out in anguish and he can't understand what he's done to deserve this, can't imagine that this sort of torment is happening simply to happen, cannot possibly believe that this torture, this punishment, simply exists because it does. He cannot grasp the idea that true evil will hurt true good without cause or reason. What he knows is what his religion has taught him, what his parents (however cold and distant they may be) have taught him. Good behavior warrants rewards. Bad behavior promises punishment.

Poor, naive Tweek.

Parents are funny like that sometimes. Lying right to their child's face, no hint of remorse. Oh, the mental torment and trauma it brings in the later years.

There is always a monster in your closet.

Tweek's head tips to the side and his leaky eyes are met by Mother Mary's. Her eyes are grey. He lets out an anguished wail and later regrets doing it but he couldn't be expected to hold it in, not really. Because what his eyes met after a moment of staring at the heavenly mother was something of an unidentifiable horror.

There is a monster in the candlelight.

Features lit up like some sinister thing, he walks forward, dark holes of black shadows gazing at the offering. He seems to be moving so much faster and by the time he reaches Tweek's altar, the blonde is just about done with all his screaming and thrashing.

"Everything's fine."

Tweek thinks that this is the worst lie he has ever heard.

The monster's fingers graze across the quivering and pale and bound body, lips dragging up and up to reveal those carnivorous teeth that would love so dearly to sink into the lovely flesh, laying so nicely on this platter all for him.

Tweek can tell that he's thinking these things because he is muttering them beneath his breath as he traces odd, shapeless patterns onto his chest and stomach. When the monster is down and close to Tweek's ear, his eyes close tight and he hopes to God that please, please, don't bite me. Please, God, please.

"I'm going to let you go, Tweek." Craig whispers into his prey's thoughts. "Please don't run. I want to talk to you."

The original idea that this may be a cruel trick is soon dismissed when the bonds loosen noticeably and he is able to sit up completely, the restrictions on the floor, abandoned. Craig patiently waiting, staring, loving.

"I will always love you." The grey-eyed boy whispers, leaning forward slowly to touch Tweek's wrist. Tweek flinches. Craig's mask flickers and he drops his hand onto the other's, squeezing it within his own now, smiling as if in reassurance. Tweek doesn't feel reassured. "I hope that, in time, you will come to terms with your own emotions as well."

Tweek closes his eyes and Craig's hand travels up, slowly, leisurely, stopping to rest on Tweek's forearm.

"It makes me sad," Craig ventures to say, sighing as if it is too much effort. "to think that you are lying to yourself like this." Tweek trembles beneath his weighted touch and squirms nervously, wishing he wasn't there, that anything would take him away from Craig.

He opens his eyes, the nightmare welcomes him once more through those grey eyes that Know.

"I Know you love me, deep down. We've been through too much together. We've seen the same death, shared blood and heard the devil calling us in the night. We are meant to be. I Know It." Tweek doesn't bother to mention that Craig had caused all of those things, figuring it would only make him angry. He merely nodded. And his fingers tightened around that cross made of bronze. His tongue ran out to wet his dry, cracked lips and for the briefest of moments, he swore he heard a third voice, urging him on. Do it. Do it now. Do it. Now.

"You'll see," the monster wasn't Craig anymore, he had that hungry look again and Tweek knew it meant bad for him. "Even if I have to make you see." He said with a slow smile and turned his head up to stare intently and lovingly at Tweek.

Tweek thinks grimly. _How can you do that if even you won't be able to see?_

And he lunges forward with the bronze cross, aiming for those grey Knowing eyes, his own closed tight with fear. They remained closed, even when he felt the pressure of his weapon sink into Craig and he doesn't bother to look, just release and run, darting for the door and blindly searching for the way out.

And with blood rushing madly he can only think of his own survival. _I'm going to make it._

---

Craig screams in agony, reeling back as the cross connects with his shoulder, sinking enough into his skin and muscle that it practically stays in place all on its own. He sobs as his fingers grip onto the cool-hot bronze and he pulls, separating it from his skin with heavy pants, hissing as he lets it clatter to the floor.

Grey eyes glance up and find a blond head as it ducks out the doors and into the cold. It has gone miserably wrong.

Tweek is escaping from him. After all the blond has made him feel and he's gone, again, and yet those feelings are still there, securely in place. The love is amazing.

His legs move of their own accord and he manages his way sluggishly to the door, where the furious cold enters his lungs and stings his alertness back to life.

"Tweek," is all he whispers before beginning after the boy in the dark.

It wasn't meant to happen this way. It should have been beautiful and wonderful and make Craig feel human again. It, he came to realize as he walked serenely through the blistering cold, would never be able to make it into reality. It would remain trapped neatly in his skull, quieting down when the monster decided to emerge - like now. It is drowning and It is screaming soundless bubbles. The monster pressed on. It drowned horribly.

Craig is apathetic as his feet touch the snow, crunching it underfoot, loving the sound of melting ice compacting and freezing again. The monster is taking over and it wants so much blood he wonders if its appetite could ever be sedated. He doubts it. He breathes. Ice crystals form right before his eyes and he wants to kill them.

His grey eyes dart upward and he sees Tweek stumbling across the snow that had only recently melted only to freeze once again. The blonde is going to hurt himself, running like that on such a slippery surface.

And then Craig is running after him, his hands grabbing the air as Tweek runs, screaming and begging him to please stop this madness. Craig knows he has heard this before, but it doesn't stop his heart from beating faster.

Tweek slips and goes sprawling onto the snow, a rather loud crack from beneath him signaling he had stumbled and was now laying on a sheet of frozen water, the only thing keeping him from drowning at the moment. He looks so vulnerable now, so docile, so innocent that Craig doubts it was Tweek who had stabbed him in his shoulder with that bronze cross. Tweek looks ready to surrender, ready to admit his feelings to Craig. Craig loves the look on Tweek's face. Tweek can't swim.

He draws himself up, trembling, cheeks and nose bright red as Craig approaches him slowly, feet gliding over the snow covered ice as if he were born on it. His eyes are still as they take in the sight of the boy on the ice and he moves to crawl down onto the frozen water, on all fours, moving forward until his hand is cupping Tweek's jaw. Tweek flinches, like before, despite the slow and gentle nature of his touch. His grey eyes search through Tweek and the blond looks away quickly with a soft gasp. Craig's thumb runs lightly, lovingly, across the surface of the other's skin, loving the paper dry feeling and sound the action produces.

"I will never hurt you. I will always love you, Tweek."

There is a butterfly stuck in between two sheets of ice, frozen there. It's orange. Bright, beautiful orange against the grey snow and ice and sky and thoughts and eyes.

Their lips meet in the quiet dead. Tweek doesn't flinch.

"I love you forever, Tweek. I will always protect you."


	8. Eight

Wow, an update, really? Sorry for the delay everyone!

Just as a fair warning, this chapter contains a bit of detail involving rape that will be edited out. As always, if you want to read the entire, unedited version you can find it on my LJ at ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com. (I actually went back through and decided not to edit out much, but this is still going to be pretty disturbing, so... yeah)You won't have to friend me or anything, I leave the LPB chapters unlocked for this specific purpose. Anyways, continue if you dare! Btw, there will be a playlist posted soon on my LJ for this. =3

Enjoy~

* * *

_Ancient language  
Speak through fingers  
The awful edges  
Where you end and I begin_

Lying is like cancer.

It consumes its prey slowly at first, creeping up over the skin like a black shadow, tickling, soft, unseen until the day comes when an accidental brush of a hand brings rapt attention to the shadow. Inspection comes next, a careful examination to determine the exact nature of the thing, to commit to record and mind that it really is cancer. And then hell breaks loose.

There have been those crazy enough to try clawing the anomaly from their flesh, those devastated enough to shot a bullet through their gray matter, those deranged enough to convince themselves it is not real, it is not happening to them.

Turned side by side, cancer and lying blend into one shapeless, hateful entity, only one stark contrast between the two sticking out like an awkward appendage.

No one willingly spreads cancer.

But Tweek remembers being raised to survive encounters with those who want to hurt him and he knows that the only way home is through Craig's hideous, black veil of love. If he can only just squeeze through it… he should be able to run home, lock the door and insist on either the police jailing his old friend or securing a padded cell for him somewhere far, far away. And putting him on the 'No Visitors' list.

So Tweek lies. He reverts to the oldest of techniques, relied upon by thousands who never learn from the previous mistakes, and he lies to Craig to open the veil, at least enough to build enough trust that maybe Craig will take him home and maybe he'll be able to survive the cold night.

And the kiss hurts less than he would have guessed it would, it barely makes Tweek's muscles tense and the tenderness Craig displays is almost sweet, had it been more consensual. Just a little bit longer… just a little bit more… Craig is pinning him down to the frozen lake, is holding him there, making sure he can never escape, not until Craig gives him permission.

This is right, right? Tweek trembles, shivering from not the cold but the whisper soft touches Craig leaves against his skin and the slow gathering slickness from the dripping shoulder wound, the soft drip-drop-smatter of blood against their icy honeymoon sheets. Craig is breathing heavy now, whether from the cold or from the run or from the pain or from the heat building between them, Tweek cannot tell. He holds his breath, refusing to breath in the toxic air that Craig exhales. He turns his head away appropriately as the other's lips meet his neck, attacking it with sharp bites that draw waterways down Tweek's pale cheeks.

This is survival. If he wants to get home, if he wants to live another day – how will he live another day, after this?

Tweek's mind goes still, drawing him away like an angelic savior, sweet and protective. Hush now darling, do not be afraid. Tweek can hear them singing to him, can hear their soft whispers in Craig's guttural grunts and groans. He feels hands upon his skin for only a second before the angels rub the feeling away, erasing it from his flesh, promising _this will only hurt for a moment _and that he _does not have to be afraid anymore, we will protect you_ and Tweek believes them, even when a sharp pain spreads up his spin, alerting his brain that something is wrong. But it was ok, because the angels were there and they were going to take care of him.

Craig's face, contorted with pleasure, dripping with sweat, looms over him and he gives it the briefest of attention before diverting his mind to the moon that hangs over his nightmare's good shoulder. Fat and heavy with its burden and lightening the earth, it glistens against the snow, merrily teasing his mind into alert, calling it forward, drawing it away from his hell on earth.

Craig is collapsed against him, whispering softly, telling him, _lying_ to him, about how much he loves Tweek. His fingers are running over his skin and Tweek lays there, allows Craig's face to burrow into the nape of his neck as he gazes up at that moon. It hangs so low that Tweek is tempted to reach out, to just… grab at it. He blinks, it glistens cheerfully and as the flood begins and Craig recites countless promises of love, he wonders why… why do tears always look so happy to the person who is crying? Why? Why? Why?

Craig lays against Tweek, breathing heavily, the hot sticky mess shared between them cooling rapidly, reminding him that they cannot lie here beneath the moon forever, no matter how content either of them are.

It's so sweet here. So peaceful. Quiet. Lovely.

The dark inside is ebbing away, hiding from the moon, from the glow of their love, unable to stand something so undeniably pure. Craig smiles softly against his love's skin, giving it a soft kiss to display his appreciation for the other. Tweek does not reciprocate the 'I love you's at first, but slowly he begins mumbling some things that sound close enough to what Craig wants to hear. Poor thing is probably tired, is all, needs some rest, is all. He'll be singing I love you before there was much time at all, he would be of course because they were in love after all.

After all.

In capturing Tweek, in making love to him, Craig feels secure. He curls closer to the body beneath his, continues talking little nothings, just to fill the silence between them because there can never be any sort of gaps, ever. Craig knows who he is now. No longer scared, no longer driven mad by the insatiable desires, no longer emotionally empty.

In ending Tweek, he has found his beginning.

The moon smiles at him through the curtain of tears, she tells him the pain will go away, she tells him that everything will be fine, just hold on tight to reality, just remember that we will keep you safe.

But Tweek is blissfully oblivious as to the meaning behind her words. He remembers nothing, feels nothing, hears nothing, sees nothing of the last ten minutes, only just now have his senses been reactivated, allowing him to ponder over what has just happened here while dancing around the evidence, purposefully remaining blind to it. The hot mess below, the pain, the blood, the sweat. It was immaterial. There was another meaning to all of this. Had to be.

"I-I want to go home."

They're ten again.

Tweek stands beside the river, looking in at himself, watching the jittery movements, questioning himself, pondering who he is now and who he will become. At least Craig was wondering in that way, he wasn't sure if Tweek saw those questions or if he only saw those silly, characteristic jitters of his and a malnourished child looking back at him.

Craig saw nothing when he looked down at his reflection. He saw a darkness that spread across the surface of the water like oil, poisoning, killing, devouring. He saw only a cancer, a burden. A filthy, shit for brains, fucking mistake of an abortion. He regarded the darkness in apathy, face drawn blank, daring the shadow monsters to fight, to rise up and see what he could do. He could fight back. He would never let anyone push him around ever again, never let anyone else hurt him.

But Tweek appears beside the darkness and it does not consume him. It shrinks away, it quivers from the bright splotch of color beside it. Craig looks up to the boy, seeing him in real time, and Tweek smiles, taking his friend's arm and leading him a little ways down the stream, guiding him to a new place. The water pools here. Remains still like glass. And his reflection is there, beside Tweek's, looking up at him with the sort of apathy to which he regarded his monster. And though Tweek looks happy, Craig sees into his reflection, knows it's the same thing, only changed. You can never change a mistake, only cover it up with a disguise to make it look nicer.

Found you.

The butterfly is still stuck in the sheets, its tragic, captured innocence reflecting the look of growing horror within Tweek's eyes. The shadows creep over them and he panics, wings stir, feathers scatter, bird in flight. Help me, someone just please help me. Because, just then, Craig had something that sent his inner bird all a flutter and scared. Craig had just said,

"We're already home."

And then had kissed him gently, promising an eternity of _this. _

This…

Welcome home.


	9. Nine

_**A/N: **__By now, I'm sure a lot of you have either gotten sick of waiting or have just given up on me. Sorry for that. I know it's redundant to apologize more than once for lateness, but life has been a lot (I'm sure you've also heard that excuse before) but I finally was given the right amount of inspiration by an out of the blue comment a reviewer left me over my Livejournal. Remember, comments and reviews mean the world to me. Even if you hate it, review it. As always, the completely unedited version is available on my Livejournal (ienvy[dot]livejournal[dot]com)Thank you and please enjoy. _

* * *

_Inside your mouth_

_I cannot see_

_There's catastrophe_

_In everything I'm touching_

_

* * *

_

Heat. A sort of blazing inferno springs up into the night sky, baking their faces red, lifting sweat and tears from their skin, permanently staining their clothes with the dull, persistent odor of black smoke and leaving a scar – so deep and dark – in Tweek's so fragile, so breakable, mentality.

The sort of things that Craig had done that night, had done to _show_ Tweek of what he was capable of doing, of what he was _willing_ to do to prevent Tweek from ever leaving… Those things – horrible, terrible things… They left Tweek aquiver and Craig trembling from a mad rush of adrenaline.

The heat waves come in rapid succession until, unable to breath, Tweek's legs give way to the ground, allowing the tiny body to fall in a crumple. And still, as he gives in to the madness encumbering him, the heat presses on, coolly reminding him of the vast contrast that stood between it and Craig – and yet how perfect of a symbol it was. It was maddening, the thoughts he was thinking. Absolutely maddening. He can't breath.

As many lovers' spats do, this one began with the mention of the "in-laws" and had ended in flames and fear.

Tweek sits as still as he can, trembling from the effort he exerts to do so, hoping that if he remains as still as death, perhaps Craig will forget his being there altogether. Unlikely, but all he has is hope these days and that's the best he can do. Craig's eyes, stone cold yet so subtly capable of love, never waver in their gaze. For almost two weeks, they have never wavered, not even in sleep. As far as Tweek knows.

For two weeks, he has sat beneath that gaze that shakes and frays his edges. Two weeks he's worn out his nerves, anticipating the moment he'll be tugged from this nightmare and fearing that moment will never come. Two weeks he's worn the same skin that Craig has defiled, the same clothes he's sure he's soiled but no longer can tell, or really care. Two weeks they've been sharing meals at the altar, sitting in silence as Tweek eats only enough to keep him alive and Craig watches him. Two weeks and Tweek's hope of rescue is flickering. Two weeks too long and he's had enough. He breaks their normal silence with a question so timid it barely tumbles from his chapped lips.

"D-do you think… maybe… we c-could go back sometime? To… visit my parents maybe?"

He regrets the question the moment he manages to catch Craig's gaze. The tiny bite of Twinkie solidifies into a stone and feels like a rock when it drops into his stomach. Craig stands, a smile curls at his dead lips, and he lifts a plate, found abandoned in the church's storeroom.

Its pattern is a pretty one, light gold with swirls of cracked petals and vines woven into it. It shatters when it strikes Tweek in the temple, forcing out a cry of surprise as he instinctively flings himself to the floor, eyes shut tight so that when the other lifts him back to his feet, it's a rude surprise.

"Are you not HAPPY here?" The dark one roars, black wings flaring, eyes smoldering, passion. Tweek's stammering response is lost when Craig heaves him across the table, Tweek's body sliding like a rag doll before it careens to the floor, dragging with it the other plate and chalices of untouched wine. They make for a very poor cushion when he hits the ground, most of it shattering beneath him, little shards of monsters penetrating his skin and sending a race of pain to his numbed nerves. He feels it though. This time. He feels it. The cry that is forced from his lips is devoured by the monster, who grabs him up again and slams him into a wall, grinding air and life itself from Tweek's frame.

Something breaks inside of Tweek. He slumps into a helpless heap, cowering and quaking, hands flung above his head, a vain hope for protection because please, no more, it hurts.

Love can be bought at such a small price. A fearful love, but a love nonetheless.

Craig pries the shell of his arms open and stares down at the morsel inside. Just stares. No smoldering gaze, no fearful blues, just a stare that stabs into his weak, shuddering body and robs it of all its hopeless cries for the end, because pleading seems so pointless now.

And, in a voice that awakens new fears, he asks, "Do they make you happier than I do?"

Tweek's reply freezes fast in his throat. Mutely, he shakes his head and Craig's whisper, louder than a bomb, hits his ears.

"Liar."

"No! I-I just…"

"Liar!"

"Craig, I-" He's punched hard across the jaw, leaving words to stale in the air and Craig's back to him again, cupping his face in a way to make any demon purr, soft apologies whispered to a half-dead corpse.

Above the ringing in his ears, Craig speaks as calmly as ever. "We'll go see them…" Tweek's heart lifts, for a moment life sputters back. "I'll show you how much they love you." The life shrinks away, fear replaces its dull thrum. "My dear Tweek." A cold hand presses to his hot jaw and everything and anything after that is dark, lost to Tweek's safe haven, in the place with the moon and the angels.

Craig prepares his victims carefully. Instructs them as to the rewards and the consequences, asks if they're ready to commit to them. Because that's how the world works… by choice. Or, at least, the illusion of it. Heaven forbid Americans not be able to choose which artery-clogging hamburger they devour, though in the end, death still reaches out to them. So he gives Tweek's parents their choices. He even removes the gags so they can talk it over, but stubbornly insists that they at least remain in their restraints. He can't have them running off, after all.

In the end they choose (what they think) is life. They decide to not call the cops. To let Craig have Tweek and, in turn, avoid the sting of the scalpel he wields so confidently. Craig smiles, tells them what awful parents they have been. And he leaves.

When he's outside again, he kisses the barely conscious Tweek back to life, whispers to him, on a loop. The Tweak household has been consumed by flames, the front door is wide open, framing the picture of his parents, their faces twisted in agony as they are formed into a living ode to Dali and his melting clocks.

Tweek's scream doesn't leave his throat, his ears fail to capture the horrible cries of his parents. But he hears one thing, Craig's voice, a mad tremble in its chords, on a loop.

"Do you see what you make me do?"

Sobs slam free from a constricting throat, mouth going dry, aching. He screams mindlessly, blindingly swinging his arms in all directions, screaming for relief. Where is his moon? Where are the choruses of angels, why haven't they whisked him away from this nightmare? Where is his moon? There's the welcoming blackness again. The ground and the dark.

He realizes now that he wears no restraints, that Craig isn't even touching him. Craig's gone from sight. His voice, those words, remain and Tweek collapses back to the ground, sobbing harder and harder, retching in time with the distant sirens. The house is still burning. His parents are lost behind the flames. He tries not to look. Tries his damned hardest not to give into the temptation.

A hand touches his shoulder, familiar but not Craig's. Stan crouches in front of him, through the haze, Tweek can see an amount of concern on his face. Kyle is behind him, his words lost to the roar around them, but with a comforting ring to them. Tweek falls into their arms.

"Ssh, it's ok, don't cry anymore, we're going to help you… Ssh…" Tweek wasn't aware that he was crying. "Don't look back anymore…"

Tweek's spine tingles. There's movement, he catches it only briefly, but it's there. A mad screech tears from his mouth and he tries to push away from the two, tries to run. His legs give beneath him before he even makes it a full stride and as Kenny starts towards him, a sort of an epiphany tilts across his mind.

"My leg is broken."

Kenny falls to his side, Stan and Kyle are searching their surroundings for something, anything, to help Tweek. Kenny's orange parka is stained red. Kenny's alive. Kenny's alive. But one thought at a time, please.

"My leg's broken." He says again as Kenny tries to move him back up. "My leg's broken."

Kenny says something. Stan and Kyle are moving again, moving to help Tweek.

"My leg's broken!" He says more urgently. Kenny shakes his head, starts to say something else. "My leg is broken! IT'S BROKEN!" He screams. "My leg is broken! It's broken! He broke my leg! Oh my god, he broke my leg! He broke my leg!"

The suddenness that this thought occurs to him knocks him into a stupor. Everything slips into place. Craig broke his leg, back at the church. Craig hadn't restrained him because he had disabled him. Craig had broken his leg. Resorted to the one thing that would guarantee Tweek's permanence, that would prevent him from running. Craig had broken his leg.

A wild scream rips into the night.


	10. Ten

_"As I sweat and crush you._

_And I hold your beating chambers_

_Until they beat no more._

_You die like angels sing."_

_

* * *

_

Kenny's home is less of a home but more like a shack. Opened and empty cupboards, piles and dishes, dirty counters, stained green carpeting, ripping upholstery.. its all falling to bits around them, but it remains the only safe place. Kenny's father is gone, blame the alcohol abuse, and his mother exhibits an amount of sorrowful love, trying her best to display how eager she is to be loved in return. She doesn't ask any questions when the four of them stumble in – Tweek hobbling uneasily on one leg. Kyle and Stan muttering beneath their breath, her own son covered in blood. And all covered in a layer of ash, bringing a wave of smoke with them into her sloppy home – No, she leaves them be, brings mugs of hot chocolate, though for months thereafter, she will question her choice that night to retrain from calling the cops or the hospital. No, she leaves them be and is on her way to her night shift at the gas station. For now, they are safe.

Tweek's leg is outstretched on Kenny's bed while Kyle rolls up his pants and examines it. Stan stis beside him, watching and waiting. Kenny paces at Tweek's side, eyeing the impossible angle that pale leg is bent at, guilt chewing his nails down to little stubs.

"We should've found him sooner." Kenny finally says, shattering that fragile silence.

"Kenny, don't-"

"No, this didn't have to happen!" Kenny says, stopping, glaring down at that leg, defying its tangibility. "This didn't have to fucking happen."

"We tried, dude. It's not like we had a GPS or something to find him, we did our best." Stan stands, irritated, defensive.

iAt least we found him in one piece./i

Their words dip in and out of Tweek's conscious, words and sentences that mean something, surely, but he just can't put them together right now. Not yet. He just stares at Kenny, at his parka, at that blood. It's so bright. Curious that Stan and Kyle haven't pointed it out yet, he glances to their arguing faces. Everything seems to slow down. Kyle's talking as he wraps up his leg, Stan is shaking his head. Neither of them notice all that blood. Curiouser and curiouser. He twists his neck back to gaze at all that blood, watches and imagines he can see it drying, crusting over, another stain for the collection.

"Where's it from?"

He must've interrupted something important, because all three turn to stare at him. They must not have heard him.

"What's all that blood from?"

On cue, Kyle and Stan and Kenny look to the parka, stare at it with the same resolve before they return to their tasks. The argument dies. Kenny shrugs off his parka, tosses it to the ground and sits on a chair, morose. Tweek opens his mouth to ask again, but Kenny interjects before he can even speak.

"It's from Craig."

Tweek waits for a further explanation, but no such sustenance leave Kenny's mouth, making him wonder: Had Kenny killed Craig? Gotten rid of all those nasty little problems just like that? He thinks little more of this. The pain killers send him back down beneath a few layers of consciousness.

Those in the room remain on silent guard, alert and protective. Tweek sleeps.

* * *

Craig's battered body lays in the wooded ditch, dead eyes gazing eternally at the stars, blood pools melting little craters into the snow. No one would miss him, not really. That's not the motivation that captures him safely from death's clutches. No, what drags Craig back from hell's gate is the idea, unfathomable as it is, that Tweek was no longer his, that Tweek had escaped.

He pulls himself up like a corpse from its grave, dead leaves and blood clinging to his clothes, bruises shining in the dark. He eyes the shard of glass protruding from his side, Kenny's crude choice of a weapon. Touches the spot on his cheek where Kenny had cut him open, leaving a smile permanently etched into his face. He fingers his neck, feels that long gash, not quite deep enough.

For now though, he resolves as he limps down along the back road where Kenny had chosen to dump his body, without checking his pulse properly, for now… for now, Tweek will be his.

It's a strange wonder what a human body can really endure. The body, really, is only a physical tether, mentally a person can train themselves to withstand anything. Craig was one of those people, so dead inside that hardly anything on the outside really worked.

Kyle, Stan, Kenny and Tweek were not the same.

* * *

It's a strange wonder how heavily one can sleep when properly drugged.

When Tweek wakes up, he feels alone. The lights are off. There's a drip coming from the bathroom adjacent to Kenny's room and though he lays there, trembling with terror, he finally pushes himself up to his feet (or foot) and hops to the room.

Unsure fingers scramble along the wall for a light before, finally, they reach it and flick it on. In front of him is a simple sink, cupboard and medicine cabinet trio. A welcoming normalcy. He hops over to the sink and presses down on the faucet. The dripping remains. Confused, he turns to the shower curtain and after a carefully amount of slow maneuvering, reaches it without difficulty and flings it back. Immediately, he regrets that he did. A dozen or so cockroaches scatter in the reveal, dive down the drain and after a moment of disgust, he presses hard on the faucet, ending the infuriating noise and his mission. With a sigh, he goes to exit, pausing only briefly enough that the mirror truly catches his gaze.

In the light flooding from the bathroom into Kenny's room, Tweek spots a ceiling tile askew. A very odd thing to note, but it's hard not to when there's a pale, dead face staring out at you. Tweek spins around, his breath catching in his throat as he teeters back to the bedroom, gazing up at the ceiling, waiting for that face to disappear, to melt away into a hidden stash of pornos. It never does. The closer Tweek gets, the more and more it looks like Kyle. The mouth opens, it takes in a sharp breath of air and Tweek jumps back, scream stuck in his throat. He falls to the ground, trips over the arm protruding from beneath the bed, gripping his ankle.

Stan's face is framed by bed ruffles, his mouth opening and closing but only blood and bile leaving it. All he can do is take in a handful of final breaths before he chokes on his own blood and dies. Tweek wants to scream, but he only jumps to his foot and hobbles to the door, desperate for escape. When he tugs at the handle, it swings open and forcefully knocks him off his feet.

Kenny's body is swinging heavily against it, a rope constructed of barbed wire wrapped round his neck, keeping him suspended over the ground. His eyes are gone. Bloody holes in his head. His lips are sewn sloppily shut and his ears sporting large metal stakes, pierced through his ear drums. His hands are mostly intact, save for the fingers. Each finger has a gaping hole at each of the joints, suggesting that they had been removed so very delicately.

Tweek retches, nothing comes up. He grasps at the door handle, the overwhelming stench of blood driving him blindly into the hallway. As he straightens up, gathering up his shattered resolve, he sees Craig, standing at the end of the hall, framed by an aura of red light. He must be in hell.

Tweek thinks Craig is smiling at first. Until he realizes that that smile is only the best work of an amateur surgeon, carved into his face.

"I love you, Tweek."

Tweek shakes his head, silent sobs rock his body. He takes a step back.

"Yes, I do…" Craig takes a step forward, in the light he looks so much like a monster, like something not real, not really at all.

Tweek sobs harder. The tears must be all spent up already, because his cheeks are dry.

"I really, _really_ do."

Craig's movements are slow-slow enough to escape from. But Tweek is so tired. So tired of running, of living in constant fear. So tired of waiting to be rescued or to be killed. So tired of living. This cannot be living, whatever this is. So he trembles. He waits for the final time for the inevitable that he has been waiting all this time for.

Craig presses his hand to Tweek's cheek, he's always smiling now. He looks so happy, even as he says, "There must be something wrong with your heart." Tweek's eyes flutter open to gaze at him, his lips twisting down into a sad, trembling frown.

Craig's hand hovers over his chest, settles right above his heart. Slowly, his nails dig down and grip onto flesh and shirt. "For you to not love me back, there must be something wrong."

The nearly childlike logic of this statement forces Tweek's heart into a panic, its desperate beatings against his chest dragging a smile, a genuine smile, onto Craig's face.

"It's ok." The scalpel slides up paired with a rag. "I'm going to make everything all better."


	11. Eleven

centeriYou're a ghost love,

Nightgown flowing.

Your body blue and walking

Along the continental shelf./center/i

Craig has always wanted ithis/i to be the spot. When his father beat him, he came here. When his hamster died, he came here. When his sister was hospitalized, he came here. When he first felt the thrum of his heart and heard the hollow response, he fled here. Now that it had all finally come to this point and he knew he no longer had a choice, it seemed painfully fitting that this should be the grave. A burial at sea.

Tweek's body is still laying in the back of the truck, wrapped up neatly in a tarp to collect all the blood, to prevent a mess. Not that he cared if there was evidence, he had made it a point not to care about such a trifle. No, he just hated to see all that beautiful blood sloshing around. He much more preferred to see it all gathered at one point. One, beautiful epicenter surrounded by so much disaster that it drove the very breath from his lungs. How could anything else be so very beautiful?

He drags Tweek's body, lays it nice and neat on the shore and sits down beside it, gazing at the stretch of water. It could go on forever, til the edge of the world, even and no one would ever no where it came to an end and where it started.

It's been two nights since the fire, since Tweek's rescue, since Craig died and smiled. It's been one night since Tweek woke up, since Kyle and Stan and Kenny took their last breaths. Tonight is the third, the final.

Craig breaths in the salty air, lets it sting his open cuts with a smile. He glances to the tarp as it rustles with life, or perhaps just the breeze, and he smiles. "Soon," he whispers to the overzealous wind, to the greedy waves lapping up eagerly onto the shore. He peels the plastic from Tweek's face, watches those beautiful, unobtainable lips part with slow, steady breaths. He drags in another breath, releases with a sigh. And he waits.

Tweek remembers their "first time" with a vagueness he'd care not to tell you was fake.

Truth be told, it remains a vivid blotch on his memory, one that should fade with time but, like wine or blood, stubbornly remains.

They were freshmen in high school. Everyone was trying to find themselves, try to develop an identity that was permanent and fresh, that made them feel secure in their awkward skins. For Tweek, security was consistency, lack of change, stability. And as he watched the group of friends he had known all his life disperse, he felt terror.

The only one left had been Craig.

Craig. Always the same, boring, reliable Craig. Tweek clung to him at first chance and refused to part. Craig seemed to tolerate him just fine, Craig didn't want to change anyways but pointed out that it might be good for Tweek to experiment – an offer that was quickly shot down. So they became loners together, their conversations were short and few, but they were best friends either way. An odd pair, but friends nonetheless.

And only now, looking back on those days, Tweek realizes only now that there were changes in stable, reliable Craig. Tiny ripples, like those of a stone cast into a still pond. Subtle changes that he maybe should have noticed earlier, that he didn't. Or so he liked to think.

Craig began sporting bruises to school. He'd disappear for a couple of days, returned without mention of it and never brought it up. Tweek left it be. Better not to poke and prod at change, lest it inspire even more.

Then Stripe's cage was cleaned out, empty and pushed in a corner one day. Tweek tried to bring it up, but Craig dismissed it with steely coolness that reminded Tweek, once again, that change was not a beast to be disturbed.

Then his sister was hit by a bus. Everyone heard about it. Hospitalized. Traumatized for life. Paralyzed, possibly. Brain damage, even. Huge bills that on a family on welfare couldn't hope to pay. Craig disappeared again. By the time he came back, gossip had died down to a simmer and most people left him be. Now and then, someone would say sorry or something just as pointless, but were met with a glare.

Craig collected himself, piece by piece, glued himself together and had become indestructible, unchangeable.

Tweek never said anything and, eventually, forgot the incidents almost as soon as they happened. Even the worst rumors went ignored, never spoken of. He figured that, somehow, Craig liked it that way. Who was he to change any of that?

When the bruises became more consistent, Tweek had Craig over more often, tried to show him that he had a shoulder, if he ever cared to use it. Craig never opened up to him, but he did start talking more, sometimes about nothing, other times about everything. But never what was really on his mind.

One night, they walked to the playground. It was snowing, but Tweek showed enthusiasm for the chill and sprinted to the swings, where they sat and talked about nothing and everything forever. Driven by the damp cold in his bones, Tweek bounded over to the 7merry-go-round, leaping to begin pushing it. Craig watched and smiled as Tweek jumped aboard and held on tight to the bars, his pale face a brilliant white in the snowy moonlight, red blushes on his cheeks and nose, smiling as the playset melted and all that was left was Craig.

His laughter died down and he laid on the merry-go-round, gazing up as the snow came down, a delighted smile on his face. Craig was quiet as he came to lay down beside Tweek and in that quiet, private moonlight, they held hands for the first time.

It wasn't until later, on the silent walk home, that Craig kissed Tweek and it wasn't until later, when they made it to Tweek's doorstep that Tweek kissed Craig back with a reserved shyness created from years of stable nothing.

And in that darkness, Tweek finally asked the question. "Why haven't you talked about what's happened with you, at home?" And in that darkness, the shadows overlapped Craig's face, concealed the expression, his reaction and let the silence drag on for longer than necessary. Craig sighed and said only enough to scare Tweek away.

"I did it for you. You can't handle change, you hate it." It was disturbing to hear someone else label him, tell him what he could and couldn't handle. "I wanted to keep you happy. So you would love me. So you wouldn't leave."

The next day, Tweek told Craig he was going to sit with Kyle, because Kyle was going to help him with his homework. He said the same thing for about two weeks, with varying names and actions, before the excuses finally stopped coming. When he just sat with those jerks, laughed and joked with them. He stopped answering his calls, texts, IMs. Every line of connection remained, but Tweek fell deaf to every attempt, hitting 'ignore' and dismissing texts and signing off anytime Craig signed on.

And, without being full aware, Tweek had turned a needy soul into a desperately dark monster. Who waited so very patiently for this to all finally add up to something, to reach the end of his journey and figure out what it all really meant.

Tweek wakes up when he hits the water. It's freezing and Craig's got him naked, pressing him into the sand. Tweek's head is above water, so he can breath, but mostly so he can hear Craig.

"I've always wanted just one thing from you." He says as a wave rocks their bodies in the turf, the scalpel plays along Tweek's chest. "I gave up my entire life for you, after all. But I guess yours has so much more value than mine, than everyone else's right? You couldn't even give me a piece of it." He shook his head, made a tiny incision on Tweek's chest. "Now… you'll just have to give me all of it."

Tweek tries to catch his breath, to tell Craig that he's sorry, that he wishes he could take it all back. But Craig is smiling as he shakes his head, leans down and whispers.

"It's too late for change."


	12. Twelve

A/N:

Thanks so much to all of you who are still sticking around to see the conclusion. I promise, it will be up before you know it. There are only two chapters after this one left and both are already underway. I appreciate every comment, whether you hate it or love it. Thank you all so much.

**Also!** Please, tell me what pairing you'd like to see in my next story. It won't be quite as long as this and it won't be nearly as macabre. But cynical? Oh, yes.

* * *

_You are a dream among the sharks,_

_Beautiful and terrifying_

_Lit and restless._

_We dance in dark suspension._

_

* * *

_

For as long as Craig can remember, Tweek has always been his. Has always been meant to be his. And as far as he's concerned, Tweek had already given consent to that. That night on the merry-go-round – that had only been the tail end. Tweek could run all he wanted, Craig would only follow. And when following wore thin on his patience, he would snap one of those little twig legs.

Capture his mad little butterfly and pull it down into his net, keep him safe, preserved. Tweek had to be his. That was the only way to end the nightmare he had been living for so many years.

To escape this gray town, where nothing made sense anymore, nothing but how absolutely perfect Tweek was. The key to his escape, to his relief… and now there was just no other way.

_iWhat makes you happy?_

An innocent enough exercise for the first class of the year. Tweek had been sitting between Kenny and Craig all through his first year of English. Kenny had snickered at the assignment, had made jokes about nearly _every _assignment, but had done them with his own sick perverse sense of humor.

Tweek always laughed at the jokes, even if he really didn't think they were that funny, and looked back to his paper, wanting so badly to fill the page with all sorts of little lies, about his awesome friends and how awesome the parties were and how much fun they always had, how his life couldn't get any fucking better.

But by the time class had ended, he had a sentence or two down. Some bullshit about going to see new movies and playing video games at Token's house on his wide screen. Even a glance over to Kenny's paper proved that he'd found some _real_ things to write down, other than the teacher's tight blouse. Things that Tweek desperately wanted for his own.

Kenny glanced up, caught his gaze and gave a sort of cocked smile. "No cheating."

A quick, flustered glance over to Craig had proved he had done worse with the assignment than Tweek had. His paper was blank. And for some reason that empty, bare sheet of paper scared him. Hollow, empty, devoid of any sort of inkblot or trace of tangible emotions. Just… Blank.

It terrified him.

"Since you copied off of me," Kenny's voice dragged Tweek's attention away from that piece of paper. Kenny was sliding his paper over to his desk, tapping his pen against it as he pretended to read it. "Hm, good, good… Sounds like a nice rounded out life you're living, Tweek. A little too nice and round, if you know what I mean."

Tweek was sure he didn't know what Kenny meant. But that sly fox grin gave him a bit of a clue and his face lit up.

"You see that movie that came out last weekend?"

And, just like that, Tweek had made his first real friend. No chaotic misunderstanding, no hallucinatory gnomes, not even a competition. It was a real, honest to god friendship, formed through a little accidental stumble and a neat string of little white lies. His fate, all of their fates, were sealed and locked together the moment Tweek agreed to see that movie with Kenny and Craig turned in that blank assignment.

* * *

_What makes you happy?_

Tweek.

"Is he a very close friend?"

"The closest I have."

"Why's that?"

"He makes me feel alive."

She makes a face at his answer, wrinkles her nose and jots down a little note on her clipboard. "How so?"

Craig's lips curl into a tiny smile at the corners. He knows the answers to all her questions, knows what to say, how to say it, when to cry, when to close his eyes and sigh. He's gotten so very good at acting.

"I enjoy being with him."

"Do you talk to him, about some of the things we talk about?"

"No."

Another little note. "Why not try it sometime? It would be good for you to share your feelings with them."

"No, I don't think so."

She looks up, frowning. This was not the typical response. She sets her pen down quietly on the clipboard, crosses her legs and frowns. "Why not?"

"Because I would only scare him away." He says this with a perfectly timed sigh, looking away from her pointedly and resting his cheek on his open palm. Picture perfect teenage angst sob story, 'nobody-understands-me-I'm-alone-in-the-world'.

She smiles, understanding. "Craig, you have to learn how to trust people with these things. No one is going to hurt you."

"Maybe not." He says, drifting out of the conversation, mind already working its way through the scalpel, through the neat little procedure he'll work on his closest friend to show him just how much he loves him.

She smiles. They've made progress.

* * *

Tweek couldn't stay innocent and pure forever.

But this level of betrayal deserved more than a simple slice of their hands and a blood promise. Tweek had willingly given himself away to someone else, after all, before Craig could stop it and before Craig could make him see how much he truly needed him. All these years he's waited to capture his little butterfly and now outside of his house, watching Kenny and Tweek stumble up the staircase, he realizes he's too late.

His body trembles and he screams and he beats his fists against the house. Why had he waited so long? Why had he waited so long?

Kenny steps out onto the porch, searching for the noise that Tweek had not heard, sees the monster sitting there, and he does the one thing Tweek could never do for him. He invites him inside, leads him to the bathroom, where they will be secluded enough to talk.

He asks him why he's there.

"Because I love him."

And he covers the bathroom with Kenny's blood.

* * *

"Can't you see it?" _Can't you fucking see it?_

The water obscures his vision as Craig dunks his head back beneath the surface, shaking him by the neck. He tries to gasp once or twice, gulping down cool air and freezing water. Craig's sitting on his torso, throttling him as he asks, over and over again.

"Can't you see it? Can't you see it?"

Tweek wants to ask _what_ it is. He wants to scream and kick and fight but – what's the point anymore? Craig's tears are mixing with the ocean and he's getting the baptism of his life, what does it matter?

"I've done it all for you, always for you, everything for you and you can't even see it." Craig shoves his head back beneath the water and from this angle, the ripples in the water and the bloody cheek wound make it really look like he's smiling.

Tweek inhales as he's brought above the surface and looks to his tormentor with those dead eyes, those soulless things as Craig shakes him and begs him, "Can't you see it?"

He's damaged. Broken. Tweek's broken, just like Craig. Their bodies drift against the waves as they're pushed further up onto the beach. Craig is bent over on top of Tweek, still clutching his throat, though not quite as tightly, as he asks.

"Why can't you see it?"

Tweek's already dead.

His fingers loosen at the realization.

Tweek's dead.

The little blonde body beneath him, with those soulless, blank, dead, horrible, empty, dull eyes stare up at him – the life has been neatly capped out, the light flicked off, the soul checked out on an extended vacation.

The wail that loosens itself from Craig's throat isn't intentional. He doesn't even know it's him when it tears from his cracked lips, when it splits the gash in his cheek even deeper.

Tweek's already dead.


	13. Thirteen

**A/N**: Almost done! Again, thank you for all the reviews, favorites and watches. Please comment, because your love keeps me writing~ And I'm still deciding on what pairing the next fic should be, any requests?

* * *

_And you bury me in the ocean floor_

_beneath you,_

_Where they'll never hear us scream…_

_

* * *

_

Reflection. Those dead eyes were nothing but a reflection. A mirror image of himself, hopeless, blank, dead eyes. Robbed of all their color, turned glassy and thin, only a reflection now. No emotion, no love, no simple joy for life… No, Craig has stolen that from Tweek, stolen it away and hidden it somewhere and forgot about it.

And now it's almost pointless, his entire struggle, his desire to be united only with Tweek, to connect to someone who was full of what he was not, to share his life with someone who knew how to truly live it.

And now he's gone. Just a dead pool of reflection, revealing only what Craig has done, what torment Tweek has faced and how his body and mind responds to it – by shutting down. Shutting down all of those lovely emotions, emptying the body of needless reactions, needless thoughts that would only hinder his chance for survival.

Craig trembles, he releases Tweek completely and scrambles through the water on all fours, dry heaving, blood dripping from all his battle scars, wet emotion welling up so suddenly in that hollow dry shell that he breaks underneath it.

What has he done? What has he _really _done? Made Tweek his? No, just made Tweek exactly like him.

Those dead eyes.

Dry gulps for air rattle his lungs as he shakes his head. This isn't what he worked for. This isn't what he wanted. He wanted to shake the love and emotion and happiness and sadness from Tweek and drink it all up. He didn't know that the only thing this would do was drive it all away and make it so that it would never come back.

He wanted to see that emotion flicker away, die with Tweek, didn't want to see it die before him.

He screams, an agonized, terrible sound and is shoved beneath the surface of the water.

* * *

Tweek stares down at Craig as he holds his head down, both hands pressing hard on the back of his neck, thumbs driving into his spinal cord, broken, dirty nails digging into the vulnerable skin there.

All the things Craig has done to him, all of the suffering he's faced, all the damage that his poor, broken mentality can no longer handle… it all comes to this. Comes to Tweek shoving Craig's face in the sand, to the rapid, surprised bubbles pouring from his mouth, to those once strong arms grasping violently for Tweek, trying desperately to push and shove and save himself.

It's too late. It's too late, he tells himself. Too late for salvation. Too late to forgive and forget. There's just too much between them for this to end any other way. And in this way, it's strangely beautiful. Like the monster finally killing Dr. Frankenstein, cursing his maker for bringing him into this world. This is how it has to be. This is how it has to end. And it is the only way for it to end. Too many times has Craig come back from Death, too many times has Craig tricked his way back in and broke his bones over and over again.

And that should have been the end of it, he should have drowned Craig then and there, should have left his body for dead, should have run back to the town and return to…

Return to what? What was left for him in this life, now that Craig had stripped him of his dignity, his humanity, his life? What was left that Tweek could return to that Craig had not destroyed or killed? What did he have left?

The shocking revelation that, yes, he was alone in this world, drove the breath from his chest. His parents were burned alive, his friends were massacred – and the ones that were left alive would, no doubt, talk about him. Wonder about him and what had happened. Even Kenny… would Kenny come back after this? Would he even _want_ to come back? To Tweek?

And the answer was a firm, resounding: _No_

The only one that he has left, who understands what he feels, who feels just as empty as him… is Craig. The problem and the solution. Craig.

And whether he knew it or not, his fingers loosened so very slowly.

Is this how it was meant to end? Not with a bang, but a broken, terrified whisper? _Please don't leave me alone._

_

* * *

_

Craig cannot feel his limbs. Whether it is the water or Tweek's gaze that robs him of his body, he can't tell. Tweek is dragging both their corpses onto the shoreline, trembling as he collapses with exhaustion and hypothermia beside Craig.

Craig glances over to Tweek, stares at him silently, aware of the way that he shakes and shivers but not quite sure why. Is it really the cold? He wonders. Is it really the cold?

And, as if to answer him back, Tweek turns his gaze to Craig and the understanding is met.

It's only the cold inside.

* * *

Maybe we can die here, together.

* * *

I don't want to be alone.

* * *

When the ambulance arrives, both boys are unconscious. Craig's body is still covered with Kenny's rage, battered and held together by only a thread. His lungs are all full up of water and he's gone into hypothermic shock.

Tweek is in better condition, though his bones are broken, his body covered in little gashes of love and he's gone into hypothermic shock as well. He's still better off. Craig had never hurt him enough to kill him, only enough to kill that spark inside.

Kenny struggles to reach the bodies, fights against the hands of the paramedics and officers, screaming and shouting. There's death in his eyes as he watches Craig loaded up into the back of the ambulance. He doesn't want to leave Craig alone with Tweek again, especially not in that state, but is told to ride in a squad car behind them, told that everything will be all right and just listen to the adults.

* * *

Maybe we can die together.


	14. Fourteen

**ONE LONG ASS AUTHOR'S NOTE BECAUSE THIS IS THE END! **

Thank you, so, so, so very much for all the comments, love, criticisms and discussions you've all given me over the past year and a half. I cannot even begin to express how much it's all meant to me. This is my first, real story I've ever completed (at around 26,000 words!) and I intend to adapt it to become a real novel one day. Because, I truly feel like what I was doing here, with this, was an experiment, to see if I really could write a story. And, I guess that I can. Thank you so much to everyone for all the continued support and love.

If you have any questions or just want to talk to me (trust me, I'm easygoing and almost always online), you can contact me on AIM at _superfeypower_ or through mail at starkhasaheart[at]yahoo[dot]com.

If you comment, I love you forever. This is the final chapter and the end of this fiction. Let me know what your favorite scene was out of the entire story, or maybe just a line that sticks with you. Once again, thank you and I love you all.

* * *

Rehabilitation. You have a problem, and we can help.

_I understand that I must complete my therapy before I can be released. _

Institutionalized. You aren't well.

_I understand that I see things in ways that others do not. _

Isolated. You aren't safe to be around others.

_I understand that I need to better myself for the good of society.  
_

Imprisoned. You cannot control yourself.

_I understand that I am broken. _

_I want to get better._

_

* * *

_

Everything is pure here, white, untainted, whole. No color, no emotion, just stark, bare neutrality. With patients that could be set off by just the slightest hint of pale blue, they can't take any chances. No, any color must go. And black won't do, because it's depressing.

Make it white. Make it pure, empty, a canvas for all sorts of beautiful terror to be written on. Such a beautiful story, such a beautiful picture.

Craig's fingers droop over the wall, tracing the invisible pictures he's made night and night again, the emptiness sending disease crawling up his skin, begging him to fill that emptiness, to make it something real. Something obtainable. He lets his hand fall down onto the pillow beside his head and watches it instead, watches his fingers tremor and flex, the little lines trailing through them, create a map of his life, his choices and his mistakes.

He rolls over onto his side and watches the sheer curtains wiggle, possessed by the vent that blows hot air from the dark, evil furnace. He closes his eyes, body pathetically splayed across his bed, limp as a dead doll.

_It's so boring here without you._

_

* * *

_

It's been three weeks since that day on the beach, since the bodies of his friends were found, since the interrogations and questioning began. He answers every question, from the police or from the press, truthfully.

_Yes, I was best friends with him in grade school. _

_No, he never talked to me about killing people.  
_

Kenny walks him back and forth from school everyday, his undying attention and devotion to keeping Tweek safe shielding him from the press, from the stares of his classmates. With no home to go to and no relatives to turn to, Tweek lives with Kenny and his family now. It's cramped in the little home and even they can barely afford to feed another mouth, but the publicity Tweek's getting manages to get them by.

He doesn't know what he'll do when he can't stay there any longer.

Tweek cannot understand why Kenny still wants to be with him. He trembles away from his touches, skirts away from the faintest display of affection. He screams in his sleep, thrashes about wildly on the bed, body struggling to escape from something his mind cannot let die.

Most nights he doesn't sleep at all. Most nights he sits at Kenny's window, emptiness searching to be filled by whatever passes in front of him. Most nights he doesn't want to get up in the morning and try to go to school. After what he's seen, he doesn't see the point in chasing after dreams, trying to get an education.

After what he's seen, he knows more than anyone else in this town ever will.

_It's so boring here without you._

_

* * *

_

The pane of glass that separates them isn't enough.

Tweek holds up his phone and stares across that divider, stares at those eyes, staring right back at him and he knows, in that moment, that this was the something his emptiness was looking for. He swallows hard.

Craig's face is bandaged heavily where the half-smile had been carved into his lips, covered up and padded down to prevent any risk of infection. He'll always carry it with him though, forever a representation of irony.

As he sits across from Tweek, lightly gripping that phone to his ear, his lips tug into a smile, the most he can manage with all that gauze on his face. They pull apart and he what he says makes Tweek's breath catch.

"I love you."

Tweek hangs the phone up and sits there, staring at Craig, staring at him holding his end of the phone, staring at that little smile, that little twitch of the lips indicating the mad calm just before the storm. He's seen that look before, too many times.

"I love you."

* * *

_Why should I love you? Why should I want to be with you?  
_

Kenny stares up at Tweek, watches him finger that knife between his fingers, stares at the glint of moonlight of the edge of the blade, blue eyes wide with panic.

"Why should you love me?"

Kenny's expression is to die for. Beneath the gag, beneath the restraints, he looks so pitifully helpless, so full of _life_, so ready to be _broken_. The moonlight casts harsh shadows on Tweek's face, deepening the bags beneath his eyes, hallowing out his face.

The knife makes its way down Kenny's chest, circling his heart slowly.

"Why should anyone love me?"

Broken.

Kenny shakes his head and flexes against his binding, struggling to sit up, to stop this mistake.

Defeated.

He can't do this anymore. He smiles.

The blade wedges its way between their hearts and Kenny's body goes still. Sawing, gently, slowly, both boys watch as the serrated edges rise in and out, in and out. He moves in a circular motion, going around the heart. The blade sticks and stutters against the flesh and muscle, sometimes refusing to move through it, other times slicing so neatly through that it might've been a scalpel.

He carves down into the other, blood seeping up as arteries and veins are severed. The blade slips in his grasp but he presses forward, sawing through that thin layer of life, completing the circle.

"I'm sorry," Tweek whispers. "But this is how it has to be."

Kenny's sheets are soaked with blood. His body is limp. Eyes blank and empty, just like Tweek's.

"I'm sorry."

He dips his fingers into the hole he's sloppily carved. He's no good at this, yet. But he slides past the skin and muscle, reaching inside of the cavity and tightening his hand around that powerful heart. He squeezes it, watches Kenny's body seize up, watches blood seep up from the carvings. He smiles and gradually begins working it out, squirming his hand as he struggles to free it from its restraints, to snap the tendons and veins and arteries that grip desperately onto their lifeblood.

But he has it. The heart, sitting in his palm, the muscles tightening and panicking and dying right in his grip.

"I'm sorry."

_B__ut this is the only way. _

_

* * *

_

The windows here are barred. To keep the world out. To keep the crazies in. Either way, nothing comes in, nothing goes out. Craig wraps his fingers around the bars, tugs on them experimentally, feeling, testing the weight of his prison.

A bright orange butterfly drifts slowly past his window. He stretches his fingers out past the bars, letting those pale digits dance and squirm in the air as they struggle to reach the unreachable. The butterfly lands on a tree in the garden. Its wings pull up. Its wings pull down. Its wings pull up. Its wings pull down.

He retracts his arm and sits at the window, head nestled in his arms, watching that beautiful butterfly, that unobtainable speck of color in his plain, white world.

_T__his is how it has to be. _

_

* * *

_

"Craig."

Tweek stands in front of his window. A violent, horrible splotch of red nightmares in his world. His shirt all drenched in blood, his blond hair coated, matted, dripping with the stuff.

Tweek extends his hand and sets the heart on the windowsill between them. He smiles.

Craig's fingers drift through the bars, extend outward slowly, searching for the touch of that bright orange butterfly. Tweek's fingers meet his and he steps up to the bars, intertwining their grasps, their lips touching around the cool iron.

"I love you, too."

* * *

Bare feet barely skim the floor as he walks into the front entrance, all drenched and covered in blood. He stands frozen in the center of the room, dead eyes searching the expressions of the limited night staff. He smiles and, extending his wrists out to them, says, "I'm ready now."

* * *

_The Horror of Our Love…_

_Never so much blood pulled through my veins…_

_The Horror of Our Love,_

_Never so much Blood_


End file.
